Vampires Like Coconut Milk
by Zeraphie
Summary: The story starts with pads. Yes. Vampires and pads. The goddamn irony of the whole ordeal. Then there's the coconut milk, which Nico doesn't really understand because he thinks that coconut milk tastes terrible. And really, iron powder? How does that help? Jason's lucky he's just that great of a boyfriend. No matter what Juno says. vampire!au. Jason Grace x Nico di Angelo. Slash.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **Vampires Like Coconut Milk

**Rating: **M+

**Pairing: **Jason Grace x Nico di Angelo; Leo Valdez x Mitchell Kadar (for more information, please visit my profile); Piper McLean x Annabeth Chase x Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano

**Genre: **Romance; Hurt/Comfort; Family

**Notes/Warnings: **Written for the PJO Big Bang 2014! Gift for tumblr user unprofessionalamber as well! _This story contains mentions of past!sexual abuse and underage sex, along with emotional/psychological abuse. Please read with caution. _

**Summary: **The story starts with pads. Yes. Vampires and pads. The goddamn irony of the whole ordeal. Then there's the coconut milk, which Nico doesn't really understand because he thinks that coconut milk tastes terrible. And really, iron powder? How does that help? Then there's Percy, of course, because Percy is just there and the siren, the werewolf vodka-stealing sister, the vampire, and, no, Nico's name does not mean Victory of the Angels, so Leo needs to not give Nico a migraine this early in the day. Jason's lucky he's just that great a matter what Juno says.

_Disclaimer: _

**-x-**

**Chapter I**

**-x-**

When he thought about it months later, Nico had, ironically, gone to the store to buy pads.

At this time of night, it was safer for Hazel to just stay home. Besides, he was on the way back to their apartment anyway. There was no point in her fretting and making the trip if he could just grab them on the way.

He got off the bus two blocks away from their neighborhood and walked to the convenience store. Before the accident, Nico used to go there all the time to get emergency items for Bianca. It _really_ wasn't a big deal. (Still, Hazel sounded embarrassed over the phone.)

Which was where he found the source of all his curiosities.

Three feet away from Walgreens stood a guy. Tall—about half a foot taller than Nico himself. The guy was big, but not as big as Frank. (Frank was a _giant_ compared to Hazel. It was _crazy_ how they were a couple.) He wore a black hoodie and dark pants—all of which blocked out the bright glow from Walgreen's window. Once Nico got closer, he realized that the boy was as pale as a ghost and looked ready to puke.

He debated on ignoring it.

The Good Samaritan in him ignored ignoring it.

"You okay?" Taking reluctant steps, Nico made sure to keep a foot of distance between them.

The boy looked up with blue eyes that seemed like they'd seen better days. He looked around Nico's age—maybe older, and maybe sicklier. The guy might have been _tall_, but he wasn't healthy.

Still—Blue Eyes had the nerve to smile. His pale lips curved by the tiniest degree and he nodded. "A little."

A little. That made no sense.

Nico held the phone tucked in his pocket. "Do you need a doctor?"

"Something like that." The soft tenor of Blue Eyes's voice was disgustingly weak. He sat up in a better position and pulled out a crumpled twenty. "Can you do me a favor?"

"Can't buy beer, if that's what you mean." Great. If this guy was sulking because he couldn't get beer, than Nico was standing there for nothing. "I'm only nineteen."

"What?" Blue Eyes laughed, but it looked like it hurt. "No, no. Not that."

With his other hand, he pulled out a slip of paper.

"What's that?" Nico's gaze narrowed.

"Too bright in there," the other boy breathed. "Can you go in there and get it for me?"

"_Why?_"

"Too bright," he repeated. "I'll pay you."

To be safe, Nico examined the boy again. Honestly, Blue Eyes looked like he couldn't hurt a fly. He was going to go in there anyway-why not get paid to do so? "Okay."

"Cool." Then, Blue Eyes sighed. He put both hands out and Nico grabbed the money and paper. "Don't forget the coconut milk."

Going inside, Nico was given the fake welcome by Percy, per usual. He didn't have to look up to know that Percy was probably playing the latest installment of Pokemon behind the register.

According to Percy—while he was great with the customers that came in—he had the tendency to break or make things explode. If he promised to sit still, then the manager let him breed squirtles for the whole shift.

Plucking a basket from the clumsily stacked display near the entrance, Nico skimmed Blue Eyes's list and couldn't help his frown. He gathered all the items (which were all immediately available in the store, surprisingly) along with Hazel's pads before going to check out.

"Hey." Percy shut his game and grinned at him kindly. "What are you doing out this late?"

"Hazel needed some things." Nico pulled out money from his wallet and set it next to the register. His shoulders went to his ears and he stuffed his hands back in his jacket.

"Cool." Percy scanned the items in a swift fashion and placed them in the bags beside him. He lifted the packet of pads and arched an eyebrow at Nico. "You get bad bloody noses?"

"Uh…no?"

"'Cause if you do, I recommend getting tampons. They fit in the nose better." Percy waved the packet around, like he was waiting for Nico to agree with him and trade them out for tampons. "I saw them in a movie once. Remember when Clarisse La Rue broke my nose? Totally helped."

"You told her she sounded like a man." Nico snorted. "Percy, I am not—"

"Kidding." With a wily grin, Percy set the last item in the bags and took the bills sitting next to the register. "$18.76. Here's your change."

"Thanks." Holding his hand out, Nico felt Percy's fingers graze his own palms unintentionally.

Percy grabbed the bag full of items and handed it to him. Then, with an overly-cheerful wave, he sung, _"Have a nice day~!"_

"Bye." Nico rolled his eyes. He grabbed a separate bag for the pads and exited.

Blue Eyes was still sitting in the dark. The shadow of the hood covered half his face, but not the weak and eager grin across his lips. He tried to stand on his feet, but Nico gently pushed him back down.

Nico grimaced. Even through the hoodie, the guy was cold at the touch.

"You got my stuff?" Blue Eyes whispered quietly.

"Yep." Nico held it out at arm's length along with the crinkled twenty.

"You didn't use it?" Immediately, Blue Eyes's smile dropped. He actually _glared_ at the bill.

"Didn't need to. It wasn't that much," Nico lied. He scanned the street carefully before sitting across from the other boy. "I'm not going to take money from you while you're sick. Or when you aren't, for that matter."

"M'not sick," the other boy muttered. He stared at the bag full of belongings in the middle, then to Nico.

Heat surged in Nico's cheeks. He was glad it was too dark to be seen. "I'll leave when I know you're okay."

Under the pale lighting, he could see Blue Eyes lick his lips at everything sitting in front of him. He pulled the hood off his head and picked apart the bag immediately. The iron powder was taken out first, then the six pack of coconut milk. He pulled the tab on one can and showered it with the former.

What the…

"What're you," Nico frowned, "anemic?"

The smile over Blue Eyes's mouth was irrefutable. His gaze gleamed appreciatively in Nico's way before he downed the whole can. "Something like that."

A disbelieving laugh fluttered in Nico's throat. "You're _crazy_."

"Again—_something_ like that." Blue Eyes proceeded to do that with the rest of the six-pack. Nico thought he'd seen everything when a drunk Percy ate a two liter jar's-worth of blue jellybeans. That same mouth moved on to the large carton of milk and ham-and-cheese gas station-type sandwich that was also on the list. Blue Eyes also devoured half a bag of sunflower seeds. He arched an eyebrow at the tiny packet of sushi Nico'd bought by himself.

"That's for you," Nico reassured. "It's a good source of protein."

"Oh. Uh—thanks."

By the end, Blue Eyes had consumed three-fourths of the bottle of iron powder through the coconut milk and sprinkling it over the food like it was salt. That many milligrams should have _killed_ a person—but Nico had to admit, the guy looked a lot better. He was even able to stand on his own two feet.

"Thanks," Blue Eyes breathed. This time, it was mixed with honest relief. He'd emptied all the contents of the bag. "Without you, I would have…"

His voice trailed off, but Nico could get the gist of it. Standing at the tip of his feet, Nico pressed his hand to Blue Eyes's forehead. "You still look a little pale. Do you want me to walk you home?"

Immediately, Blue Eyes fell back. He pulled the hood over his face once again and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Nah, I'm, uh, fine. You should probably get those back to your girlfriend."

"What girlfriend?" Nico wrinkled his nose. That couldn't be further from the truth. Blue Eyes gestured to the bag still looped in Nico's hand. "Oh—no. Those are for my sister."

"Then she must be getting worried." A shy smile worked its way over Blue Eyes's lips. "Thanks for everything, man. I'll be fine on my own."

"But—"

Blue Eyes gripped him by the shoulders and whirled Nico around until the shorter boy found himself staring in the direction of his apartment. He blinked.

When he turned around, Blue Eyes was gone.

**-x-**

Once Nico got home, he left the pads near Hazel's door. The next morning, Blue Eyes's crinkled twenty falls out of the back pocket of his dirty jeans.

**-x-**

The following week found Nico in the same situation—late in the evening and out in public. Hazel and he had the tendency to stay up until the sun came out, which was why he couldn't figure out how Frank ever met his sister. Neither of them saw the light of day during the weekends—or weekdays, for that matter. The earliest class Nico had during the week was at three in the afternoon. Otherwise, he couldn't be bothered to be up before 11AM.

That being said, baking a cake was _obviously_ the best at two in the morning. They could beat the egg traffic before all the moms came to Walgreens and took the good ones. At Nico's suggestion, Hazel immediately shook a slumbering Frank (who'd fallen asleep around 8PM) and they dragged him to Walgreen's.

(They compromised and let Frank bring his stuffed dolphin. The guy could seriously be weird sometimes.)

"Chocolate cake?" Nico asked. He plucked the cocoa powder from the shelf.

"Too easy." Hazel made a face and eyed the small produce section. "What about a lemon cake?"

"Gross." Nico gagged. He picked up the 24-Pack of food dye and rubbed his chin.

Yawning with exhaustion, Frank scratched his head and hugged his stuffed dolphin close. He blinked blearily at the baking section. "Can't we just buy some cake mi—"

"_No_," both brother and sister replied.

Frank sighed. "Can't I just sleep?"

"You can sleep after the cake's made, silly." Hazel stood to the tip of her toes and pecked the boy dearly on his cheek.

"I'm gonna _die…_"

"We could make an ice cream cake." Nico grinned and eyed both the strawberry extract and cocoa powder. "Neapolitan?"

"We'd have to wait for the cake to chill before we used ice cream." Hazel rubbed her chin like Nico had done earlier. "Sounds perfect."

"I'll get the ice cream." Nico turned his footing and bit back a chuckle when he heard Frank sob. Down one aisle, he picked up a carton of eggs and looked through the glass door of the freezer for ice cream.

"Is this a regular thing for you?" Next to the blurry reflection of the nineteen-year-old boy on the freezer door was a taller one. Muscular, but not as muscular as Frank. Black hoodie, hood over blond hair. Shades this time, to hide those blue eyes. The kind smile was uncanny. "Coming in the middle of the night and disturbing the peace?"

Nico placed the voice immediately. "Asks the person who's also disturbing the peace at two in the morning?"

Blue Eyes almost looked like a living shadow. The smile over his lips only turned to a grin, with a laugh as sweet as nectar. He shifted between his feet and tucked his hands in his pockets. From this close, Nico could see a tiny scar just above Blue Eyes's mouth.

"You look better," Nico noted. But not by much. Blue Eyes still looked weary and exhausted. He'd taken Blue Eyes's "_the light is too bright_" explanation only to be nice, but it now looked like it'd kill the poor guy. In Blue Eyes's basket were two more six-packs of coconut juice and a bigger jar of iron supplement powder.

"I…feel better." The answer was reluctant. Nico wouldn't have put it past the guy if he was lying a little too. "I just wanted to say thanks, again."

"You're only saying that because you managed to slip the twenty back in my pocket before I noticed." Nico snorted. He set his basket down gently and then pulled out a large tub of vanilla ice cream.

When he looked up again, Blue Eyes looked proud of himself. He was also holding Nico's basket. "I'm Jason, by the way."

"Nico." Nico extended his hand and Jason graciously accepted it. He almost pulled back—Jason's palm felt like it'd been sleeping in _snow_.

His accomplice flashed a smile—looking almost guilty—and Jason's grip kept firmly. Weird.

"You never told me why you were out there. Like…that." He regretted asking once he got the words out of his mouth. Nico had never been the best at creating conversation. It was amazing that a guy like this was even standing next to hm.

"It. Was a weird night." Jason looked up, then down, when he realized that the lights were staring back at him. "I forgot to eat and that kind of just—escalated to…that."

"Ah." He decided not to make the guy more uncomfortable than they both already were. "Did you get home okay?"

"Yes." Jason handed him back the spare basket full of eggs. Although the shades were dark, Nico could imagine Jason's eyes as big and blue as they were from the other night. "Thank you. _Again—"_

"You don't have to keep thanking me." Nico's nose wrinkled. He couldn't help the red that burned in his cheeks—from both embarrassment and satisfaction. Having a sweet guy like Jason look at him with big glossy hero eyes was the last thing that he needed. Immediately, Nico dug for his wallet and pulled out the twenty that he was too flustered to spend from way back when. "And here—take this back."

"No—you keep it." Jason lightly pushed it back toward the other boy, this time frowning. Nico flinched again—those cold fingers only brushed his knuckles, and they felt like ice cubes.

"I don't like getting paid for being nice." Nico tried his best not to scowl, but it was seeping through.

Evidently, Jason had the same problem. "And I don't like being treated nicely without paying the person back."

Ugh. It was people like Percy Jackson and Jason that gave Nico the biggest headache. He massaged his temples with a sharp sigh and shook his head in disbelief. "Then it looks like we're at a stalemate."

"I can live with that." Again, Jason looked to Nico with a tail wagging behind him. There was even a tiny bit of smugness wrapped around his words. "So…Nico? Is that short for like…Nicholas? Nicolai—"

"No—" Erg. Nico pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. "It's just. Nico. Nico di Angelo—it's a family name."

"Di Angelo, huh? Nico still derives from Nicholas, which means Victory of the People." Jason squinted thoughtfully. He leaned against the door of the cooler and grinned. "So your name sort of means, 'Victory of the Angels.'"

"I think you just butchered English derivatives. But sure." Snorting, Nico took a step back and examined the other boy. He stared at Jason wryly. "Is that your way of telling me I'm pretty?"

"You don't need to be told you're pretty."

He rolled his eyes at the compliment and stuffed his hands in his hoodie. Of course, when a cute Walgreens alley-man decided to say something about his looks, his face _had_ to turn red, didn't it?

"Just Nico, huh?" On cue, he heard the breathy chuckle of the taller boy. "Then I'm just Jason."

The smile over Jason's lips made Nico bite the inside of his mouth. He looked to his shoelaces, suddenly at maximum capacity for social interaction, and coiled his hands inside his jacket. His face burned with _heat_ and _fluster_ while his brain suddenly hit a wall.

"Di Angelo?" Either Jason didn't notice or he didn't care. "So you're Italian?"

"Half. Half Italian, half Greek." Nico shrugged, his shoulders coming to his ears. "You…like the food?"

"Can't have garlic. Makes my throat swell." The blond smiled softly and dipped his head in good nature. "It was nice running into you again. I just wanted to say thanks. Uh, again."

"Yeah." On the bright side, he wasn't the only one making this conversation weird. The mood of it somehow sat at the border of _Super Bizarre_ and _Feeling Completely Right. _Nico wanted to get out of there as fast as he could, but. At the same time, wanted to stay and see how far this conversation would bring him. Something about the way Jason smiled made Nico feel like though he was getting sucked in.

Hazel shouted his name from the other end of the aisle. She frowned at him, with her basket fully loaded with all the ingredients to their cake. With little effort, she pulled a sleepy Frank toward their direction. "What are you—oh! I was wondering why you were taking so long. Who's this?"

Nico's gaze flitted back to Jason. "Uh…"

"I'm Jason." One blond eyebrow shot in the air and he gestured to Frank. "Is he okay?"

Frank, of course, took offense to the comment. He huffed. "You're not going to rob us, are you?"

Jason shook his head slowly. "Too bright in here."

"I feel you." With another grumble, Frank curled over and sighed into Hazel's hair. Within minutes, he was snoring.

"Jason's the guy that I helped out a few nights ago," Nico explained. He shifted between his feet and remembered the contents of Jason's basket. Snort. "He's _also_ the one that asked for the weird things and practically dumps iron down his throat."

"I don't dump it down my throat." Jason raised his basket and grinned. "I drink it with coconut milk."

"Still not healthy," Nico jabbed.

"He's right." Hazel frowned. "You should come over. We have some leftover turkey from the other night."

Nico resisted the urge to protest. He wasn't one to like visitors at their apartment. The Stoll Brothers from down the hall usually threw enough parties that Hazel and he often found drunk strangers wandering up and down the floor. That was actually how they met Percy.

However, when it came to guests that they _intended_ to bring over, Hazel had the habit of feeding them like a doting mother.

"Oh—no. I couldn't." Jason looked sheepish.

"I'll take that twenty if you take her offer." Nico shrugged and gently nudged the other boy by the shoulder. Jason looked at a loss, but not outraged. Biting the inside of his mouth once more, Nico offered, "We have cake."

He'd rather that Jason was safe than in an alleyway again.

The thought of three strangers inviting him into their apartment probably weirded him out, but neither Hazel nor Nico could bring themselves to care. Finally, Jason folded and nodded reluctantly. "Okay."

**-x-**

Jason had a startling interest in the way they lit their apartment. Once they left Walgreens, he deemed it dark enough to shed the hoodie and tie it to his waist like a little kid.

It was strange (and not in the good way.)

He acted a lot like Percy (who begged for cake and somehow set the sprinklers off by accident) in both wit and hardheadedness. But it wasn't hard to talk to Jason—even though Nico only knew him for a total of two nights.

Along with that, Jason didn't make crude jokes and jokingly wrap an arm around Nico like they shared an umbilical cord. A sarcastic smartass was the last thing Nico had the energy for at this time of night. Frank even less so—if the fact that he was using an open sack of flour as his pillow didn't say it all.

"It's like a cave," Jason decided. Sitting on the kitchen counter was an opaque owl lamp that Annabeth had gotten them as a housewarming present. Its entire body teemed with light when Nico flipped it on and illuminated across the ceiling like a shallow beacon. Jason helped unpacked the bags before perching on a stool.

Nico tried his best not to stare. The black hoodie tapered down Jason's firm hips and dangled over the stool, while the purple v-neck added a splash of color to Jason's still-ridiculously-pale skin, stretched from what looked like years of rugby in those arms and upper torso. He knew Jason was attractive, but the coy smile over those lips looked like it was only a cover for the naughty grin beneath it. The blond hair must have originally been cut close in the top, since it was now growing in a neat fashion.

It wasn't even ten minutes ago that the guy looked ready to pass out right next to Frank and sleep for the next millennia. Four of the iron-filled coconut milk cans were already gone, with the fifth sitting unopened on one of Nico's coasters.

"Frank, honey, you should go to bed." Hazel smiled and shook her head affectionately. "You're lying on the flour."

"_Mmm_…" Frank, of course, was comfortable. A groan left his lips before he looked up to his girlfriend. Half of his face was completely covered in powder. "Can't sleep without you. Too lonely."

"After the cake then." Hazel whipped out her apron and guided her boyfriend to the couch.

"Cute," Jason commented.

"Nauseating," Nico corrected quickly afterward. He rolled his eyes and pulled the fridge open for the well-promised turkey. "Do you want it hot or cold?"

"Either's fine."

From the corner of his eye, Nico saw the other boy lick his lips. Nico debated it in his head before reminding himself that Jason was absolutely cold to the touch. It might have changed since, but one could never be too safe.

(He blamed his doting nature on Bianca and Hazel. They never _were_ ones to turn down a friend in need.)

He popped it in the microwave for thirty seconds and turned the knob on the oven. Looking over again, Nico noticed that Jason was already pulling apart the second six-pack. "They can use that for emergency blood transfusions, you know. A paramedic made the news last year because he used coconut juice to save a woman's life since he didn't have access to a blood bank."

Something different was about the way Jason smiled next. He jingled the unopened can of coconut milk around and shrugged. "That's pretty cool. This has a lot more iron in it."

"Gee, I wonder why," Nico said flatly. He pulled the plate of turkey out of the microwave and placed it in front of Jason.

A wider grin settled over Jason's lips. He tapped Nico's wristband. "Hades, huh? Haven't seen something like that before. Do you have the card?"

No way. "You play Mythomagic?" Nico rubbed his wrist and stared back at the boy in disbelief. If it wasn't for the pale skin, Nico could easily place the guy as a blockhead jock.

Shrug. "I dabble." Jason lifted one of his pockets and pulled out a purple band much like Nico's own, which was decorated with a—

"That's a limited edition _When In Rome _Jupiter Lightning Bolt armband. They stopped selling those since the Greek lovers _hated_ the Roman advertising!" Nico blinked in surprise and stepped closer to examine it. He was practically sitting on Jason's lap. "_How?_"

"A friend of mine, Leo—he plays the game too. Says he went into a pawn shop and they were selling it for five bucks." Shaking his head in good nature, Jason only laughed. "Swears that he could have paid his way through school with it, but thought it'd look better on me. I keep it in my jacket so I don't lose it."

"And what if you lose the jacket?"

"Huh. Didn't think about that."

Nico would have rolled his eyes, but he was too busy drooling. He…hadn't _played_ the game since he was in middle school, but it did hold a special place in his heart. (Then he went off to college and the Mytho Club recruited him. Nico never stood a chance.)

Twenty minutes later—AKA: twenty of the best geek-filled minutes of Nico's _life_—flew by. He couldn't remember the last time he'd spoken so long or animatedly to someone other than Hazel or even Frank. Eventually, Jason told him he was smiling.

"So you _do_ smile."

Ergh. "And _you_ feel the need to give a play-by-play of my reactions."

"Only because I can't stop thinking about you."

Silence. Nico blinked and felt his face heat up again.

The smile over Jason's lips faltered. His own eyes widened and he pressed a hand to his face, ready to die of embarrassment. "_Wow._ I said that out loud, didn't I?"

"_Yeah_, you said that out loud," Nico mimicked sourly. He couldn't tell if he was offended or flattered, but the sudden streak of attention and affection was…unexpected. It was like Jason was trying to pry apart his mind. Nico didn't believe this_ Nice Guy With a Heart of Gold_ act one bit.

"Don't let that freak you out. It's really just—" Jason sighed. "Word vomit."

"Happens to you a lot?"

"Only when my mouth thinks from itself."

"Smooth." A wry smirk curled against Nico's lips. He readjusted himself over his own chair and his lips contorted to a straight line. They fell silent—the first lull in the conversation since they started.

"Should we wake them up?" Jason gestured to the living room where Nico's forgotten sister and sometimes-roommate lay. Frank had somehow landed on the floor while tiny Hazel was curled up into a ball on top of the stuffed dolphin Frank was holding earlier.

"Yeah." Nico stood to his feet and rolled his sleeves to his elbows. "She'll be mad if I don't."

"What's the story with you and her?" Jason, for some reason, stood up with him. "Sister?"

"Step." Nico rummaged through a drawer before he found a hair tie. From the corner of his eye, he could see the ghost of a smile curling over the other boy's lips. "I mean—it's weird."

"I've got time."

"My mother and my sister—they got into a car wreck when I was ten. Then Dad married Hazel's mom and the three of us got pretty close. But then Hazel's mother…" Nico grimaced and felt the rest of the story clog the back of his throat. He knew there wasn't any way he was going to finish that story. "I only knew her for a short time."

He looked over to Hazel, heart aching, and swallowed the hard lump in his throat. Everything about that night came back to him. Hades' second wife didn't last that long, either. Nico still remembered holding Hazel at the funeral, when his sister lost grip on her emotions the same way he did. He vowed to protect her from that point on—just them against the world.

_Against their father_, he added in his mind.

"It's just her and me now," Nico concluded. "Dad has this new girlfriend, Persephone, who could pass for our older sister. It's pretty nauseating."

"I'm…sorry." It wasn't hard to tell that Jason was regretting asking.

Nico shrugged. They all did.

"Sorry," Jason repeated. "You don't have to tell me that stuff."

"You asked." Nico side-stepped Frank and slowly shook Hazel awake. He checked his watch—if they got started now, then they could have the cake iced before the sun came up. "What about you?"

Jason chuckled. The sound of it was thick—almost bitter, but Nico's mind didn't linger over it.

"Don't tell me," he said instead. "Raised by wolves to control an army. You live in the alleyway near Walgreens as a cover for all the monsters you have to slay."

"Nope, just a fourth vampire."

Snort. Then—Nico laughed. He didn't know why, but the immediate comment made him feel better. Then again, Nico didn't think he'd be spending his Saturday night chatting about Mythomagic with a cute guy. It was…_nice. _"How do you _do_ that?" Flip his _mood_ so quickly?

"Do what?" He didn't have to turn around to know that Jason was grinning.

"Mm…what are you _laughing_ about?" Hazel groaned softly before she sat up and stretched out her limbs. She gasped. "Did you start on the cake without me?"

"Not yet. I learned my lesson from last time." Nico smiled and kissed Hazel serenely over the forehead.

"Good." With that, Hazel planted her feet to the ground and shook Frank. "Frank, honey…"

When he got back to the kitchen, Jason met him with a quiet smile. The taller boy ran rubbed his wrist with his other hand, where the limited edition Jupiter bracelet sat. "You're a good brother."

Of everything Nico had been told since he was little, being a _good brother_ was something he valued. And—the exact thing to say to get on his good side. Nico smiled back sheepishly. "Thanks."

**-x-**

"The sun's coming up," Jason commented.

"Yeah," Hazel said tiredly. "I'm getting sleepy."

"The cake looks good though." Frank grinned, now fully awake and on his second cup of coffee. He'd tried to help by icing the cake, but Nico and Hazel slapped his hand away several times. Again—Nico had no idea how a morning person like Frank ever came into their lives.

"You should stay for a slice of cake." Nico looked over from the kitchen counter, where he was inspecting the 24-Pack of food coloring. "Sorry you had to wait so long."

"No, that's fine. I uh," Jason grinned back kindly. "I liked the conversation."

"Yeah. Usually that one doesn't say more than two words to people." Frank laughed—which was quickly cut off by one of Nico's grumpy glares.

"We should play a game of Mythomagic some time. I bet you're better competition than he is." Nico smirked and brought the bowl over. "You'd be toast against my Hades and his Helm of Darkness."

"Not if I have Apollo's Sun Chariot." Jason smiled back. His gaze flitted to the window once more and he grimaced. "Maybe I should get going."

"No slice of cake?" Hazel frowned. "You should have first bite! You're the guest."

"Nah, I—I don't like cake anyway." Jason gathered himself and pulled the hoodie over his shoulders.

"You liar." Nico looked at the blond in disbelief. He scoffed.

"Rain check?"

Wow. Turning his head, Nico took a better look at Jason—who looked incredibly desperate to get out. He was prepared to roll his eyes and call Jason out on his dick move, but the worried look in those blue eyes couldn't be hidden by the easygoing smile.

(Nico had those moments. He also had people who let him _keep_ those moments.)

"I'm holding you to it." With a sigh, Nico hesitated before going to the fridge. He placed four slices of turkey in a bag.

"What are you doing?" Jason frowned.

"Giving you more options other than the ham-and-cheese sandwiches from Walgreens." Nico snorted. "If you're going to skip out on us, then you might as well leave with souvenirs."

"It _is_ good turkey," Frank offered helpfully.

"Mm." Ignoring the red in his cheeks, Nico held out the baggie.

Blue eyes looked back to him. Jason blinked before taking the bag. "Uh, thanks."

"Nico can walk you out," Hazel said. The duo cocked their heads to the small girl, who didn't even bat an eyelash. Instead, she took a look at the mixture Nico made to coat the cake and smiled up to Jason.

Nico resisted the urge to glare. His face _burned. _The last thing he needed was for Hazel to hook him up with a cute guy.

"I can deal with that," Jason replied. Already, his hood and cap covered his face while he zipped up his jacket.

"Dude." Nico's gaze narrowed. "It's the sun. You're not going to die."

"I'm a special star."

"_Right._" He pulled his hoodie over his head and shut the door behind him.

"Now who's hiding from the sun?" Jason teased.

"Still you." Nico rolled his eyes—but he couldn't help his own smile. Usually _skipping out _was one of the best ways to get on his bad side. He started the path toward the elevator, only to be stopped when Jason didn't follow him. Nico frowned.

"You don't have to walk me the whole way." The blonde stuffed his hands in his pockets and started his own way down the corridor.

"I'm already out here."

"Trust me. You'd have more fun icing the cake."

"O…kay."

"Nico?"

"What?"

Jason's line of sight flitted from one end of the hallway to the other. He eyed the window, watching as sunlight glimmered through and gently painted shadows of a vase full of flowers against the carpet. Then his gaze reeled back until he looked back to Nico. Focused.

"Uh—?"

Hands found their way around Nico's jaw. Before he knew it, Jason's lips pressed onto his own, latching onto him with unexpected fervor. The heat of the kiss, along with the cold touch of Jason's skin, wrapped around Nico like a blanket in New York snow.

Then, it was gone. Jason pulled away—hesitantly, shyly—with the pads of his fingers still tickling Nico's cheek.

What the…?

Nico dragged Jason down by the front of that dumb hoodie. He reached up, burying his fingers in the back of Jason's head, and brought them at eye level. Jason _eep_ed—and then Nico kissed him back, mouth open. He dragged his tongue beneath the roof of Jason's mouth and engrained that _scent_. Unsurprisingly, Jason reeked with the taste of coconut milk and all-too-weird iron powder.

(Nico couldn't get enough of it.)

His _heat_ matched with Jason's _cold_, as his hands thumbed Jason's cheekbones. Jason moaned sweetly in his mouth, hands suddenly running down Nico's back. The shorter boy jumped when he felt cold fingers set firmly on his lower (_bare_)back beneath his shirt. And—

_Ow. _

"_Ah_—" Nico pulled back. He cradled his mouth, where he—had a _slit_ on his lower lip. One that was _bleeding. _

"Sorry," Jason breathed, which was when Nico looked back up. The blonde heaved, chest expanding as his lungs tried to catch up with the rest of him. The red in Jason's cheeks was uncanny—and blotchy. He looked how Nico felt (aside from the weird cut on his lips), even though Nico swore Jason had been _freezing. _

Then, Nico froze. His entire body fell still, and he stared back at Jason. Through Jason.

Jason, too, pulled the hood back over his head. Squirming. He suddenly eyed the window again like a kid, ready to die. "I really have to—"

_BAM_

Before he could finish, Nico retreated behind the door and slammed it shut.

_What __**even?**_

He turned around, shoulder blades against the wall, and tried to catch his breath. Then, looked up.

To Frank, who was bright red and looking everywhere but Nico.

Hazel yawned before smiling at her brother. "So, how'd it go?"

A week later, Nico was trying to push the kiss out of his mind. It wasn't easy—considering Hazel felt the need to bring Jason up every ten seconds. Even Frank tried to be of help before he turned red and babbled that calling a guy_ hot_ was just too weird for him.

Nico didn't know what bothered him more—the fact that he made out with a guy that he knew for all of two nights or the fact that Jason hadn't turned up since. He wasn't one to get into relationships. The last almost-fling that he had had left Nico with a bruised ego and what Percy liked to call "_emotional constipation_."

Somehow the rumor-mill caught onto Annabeth, who discussed it with Mitchell, the Stoll Brothers, and even Clarisse LaRue—which left Nico hearing love advice at home _and_ at school.

"So what does he look like?" Mitchell asked out of nowhere. Nico groaned.

"Do we really have to do this?"

"You've been moping for the past three days. Even for you." Mitchell smiled empathetically and curled his hands over his latte. "Plus you dropped a Bunsen burner on Connor Stoll's foot today."

"He rigged it to shoot out shaving cream." Nico rolled his eyes and rested his head against his palm. "He had it coming."

Of course, Mitchell being Mitchell, stared at his friend carefully. "You're going to hide their cat before they get home, aren't you?"

"Their fault for living three doors down." Nico scoffed and laid his head in his elbow.

Mitchell thanked the barista for him when she came by with more coffee. "When's the last time you were in a relationship?"

"Three years ago. Before Will Solace told me that I was _emotionally distant. _" The other boy glared into his sleeve. He looked up and took a long sip of his frappe. "Unless making out with Ethan Nakamura before I poked his eye out counts."

"It doesn't," Mitchell replied.

"Then," Nico concluded, narrowing his gaze back to the other college student, "three years ago."

"And did it hurt?"

"Not anymore." Will Solace had been the first guy Nico dated and fell in love with. There were few people in Nico's social life, but the ones who were there were who he held dear. He'd…never had the chance to tell his two moms, or Bianca about his sexuality. Nico called himself a coward back then. If he'd come to terms with it _sooner_, then they would have known the other part of his life that he used to be ashamed of.

_Will_ was a guy that brought him out of that mindset—so outgoing and warm that he was almost as blinding as the sun. He had the same shade of blue in his eyes that Jason did, with floppier hair, and used to make up terrible poems to see Nico smile. After a while, Will took Nico's thoughtful silence as _inexpressive_. The guy was great, but Nico didn't have the patience (nor mental capacity) to shower someone so affectionate with the same amount of attention. He was a good first boyfriend. A very good one.

No one really _liked_ Nico the way Nico liked other people. The thought of getting into a relationship with that knowledge made him nervous and turned him off.

Yet kissing Jason was _electrifying._

More magnetic and cohesive than anything Nico'd ever experienced before. (Including the time Travis Stoll electrocuted the both of them.)

Nico sighed. He didn't go _looking_ for a good lay, but he had a feeling that every kiss from here on out would fail in comparison if they weren't Jason's. _That_ was going to be the hard part.

"You're thinking about him," Mitchell said.

"Thanks for the play-by-play, Kadar." Nico stirred the whipped cream in his drink and took a long sip. At this point, Hazel would chide him for so much caffeine.

"Have you tried looking for him?"

"No."

"It's going to bother you until you do." Mitchell's eyebrows knitted together and he frowned. "I'd rather you avoid dropping more Bunsen burners in class."

"Noted."

"Is there like…a _reason_ why he wouldn't come to you?" One of Mitchell's eyebrows shot in the air. Higher.

"Well…" Nico confessed.

"You slammed the _door_ on him?" Mitchell gaped.

"First instinct," Nico quipped instantly. His face flushed, burning with insane heat before he sunk back in his seat. "And I don't—_kiss_ someone that—"

—he could imagine himself in a relationship with. Jason did the dumb thing of being attractive _and_ having a personality that melded so well with his own. Nico almost wanted to kill him.

(And then kiss him again.)

"Then he probably thinks you don't want to _see_ him." The tone Mitchell took reminded Nico of an exasperated mother.

"Then I guess that means we're not seeing each other anymore," Nico seethed. He turned a darker shade of red and covered his eyes.

"You're seeing him again."

Nico groaned. _"Why_?"

"Because you're going to continue moping until you do and we're going to run out of equipment in Chemistry." Mitchell rolled his eyes and sucked the life out of the end of his drink. "So—what does he look like?"

"Blond hair. Blue eyes." Nico tapped his fingers against the table before he examined his watch. His next class would be starting in the next—two hours. Great. "I should really—"

"Hot?"

"Cold, actually."

"And?" Mitchell pressed. Nico never considered the guy aggressive, but he was certainly persistent.

He sucked the inside of his cheek and gave in. Nico sat back in his chair and glared at his half-melted frappe. "He likes Mythomagic."

"Oh my _god_. He's your _soul mate._"

"_As if._" Nico nearly choked when he took a sip of his drink and looked up to the other boy in disbelief. Seriously?

Glaring at Mitchell didn't make that smile go away. That same smile, however, contorted the slightest degree and those eyebrows fell closer together. Mitchell loosened his scarf and his entire demeanor was a blend of _sympathy_ and _semi-intervention. _"Don't you think it's time to move on from you-know-who?"

Yeah. _Yes_, his mind persisted. Nico sucked the inside of his cheek, grip tightening over his caffeine-enabler. From the corner of his eye, he saw Percy make wild hand-gestures and laugh along with the Stoll Brothers. His heart tightened in his chest and he pretended he wasn't looking at all.

"C'mon." Then, Mitchell stood to his feet. He held his empty cup in one hand and stuffed the other in his beige cardigan. A pearly-white smile found its way toward Nico. "How many Walgreens can this guy hide in?"

"He hides behind them, actually."

"Soul mate."

"_Shut it." _

**-x-**

Night fell before Nico left campus. He didn't like wandering out of a five-mile radius of school—only because it tempted him to take the subway and bus back to his apartment to take a nap. Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he decided to push midterms to the back of his mind.

He would have to, if Mitchell was going to use the next three hours to find him a date. The lucky duck had been free from classes since they left the student union much earlier during the day—and was very much well-rested to keep him company for the night. Frank had some Twenty-Three-Month Anniversary plans with a lovestricken Hazel who—of course—already approved of Mitchell's plans of taking Nico out.

(And they _did_ search the Walgreens by Nico's apartment building after coffee. There was no luck—no matter how much the tiny voice in Nico's heart insisted Jason might be there.)

"Is there anywhere else he'd be?" Mitchell asked when they got off the subway. They waited on ground level for the bus that would take them to Nico's apartment.

"I knew the guy for two nights." Nico shrugged and pretended it didn't bother him. Then pretended it was easy to _pretend_ it wasn't bothering him. "All I know is, he likes coconut milk and abuses supplement powder."

"Lovely."

"Can't we just watch movies at my place?"

"No. The Bunsen burners are at stake."

Nico rolled his eyes. Mitchell was, if not anything else, one of the most emphatic and dramatic people that he met since moving to New York. "You just want to pair me up with someone, don't you?"

"He likes Mythomagic and you two have already cleared first base and a half." Mitchell rolled his eyes. A smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. "Plus, three years is a long time. Even for you."

"I've _had_ other…_things_, you know." Mitchell _should_ know. He dragged Nico to half of those mixers in the first place.

"Yes," the other boy said back, "but don't you want something a little more…concrete? Like Frank and your sister?"

Mitchell had him at that one. Nico hated to admit it (and he wasn't even going to delve into the news of _Marriage Equality_ _in New York_, since Frank wouldn't shut up about it when he found out Nico's sexuality and Percy just loved everything that had to do with his city) but a relationship like the one Hazel had with Frank was something he envied.

Frank was, first and foremost, Hazel's first boyfriend and vice-versa. Nico thought they were crazy to be celebrating a _twenty-three monthaversary_, but Hazel wasn't going to break up with the guy for being extra sweet. During their first New Year's together, Frank was flabbergasted when a tipsy Nico gave his blessing for their future wedding—whenever that might be.

(According to Hazel, Frank spent the rest of that party freaking out over the fact Nico actually _liked_ him.)

He _hated_ digging into sentimental things, but if he could find someone that made him smile every day like Frank did for Hazel for even a _minute_, then Nico was sure he could be happy for the rest of his life.

"Soul mates," Mitchell suddenly said. His voice intruded on Nico's ministrations.

"And why aren't we finding _you_ someone?"

"Not interested." The other boy waved his hand noncommittally and smiled. They hopped onto the bus when it finally came.

Nico rolled his eyes again. "We're not going clubbing."

"Book store then. My favorite author just released a new book." Mitchell grinned.

"I can live with that."

A small, family-owned book store was four blocks down the road from Nico's bus stop. Once they were let off, Mitchell and he started the trek there. Nico _cursed_ himself when he remembered they would be passing Walgreens on the way.

"Are you getting nervous?" Mitchell mused when he realized Nico was fidgeting.

"No," Nico seethed. He wiped his sweaty palms against his jeans and stuffed them in his pockets. After that, there was no way he could ignore the way Mitchell was grinning at him. It got worse when they got to his stop. "_Fine. _The times that I _did_ see Jason, it was at night."

"_What_? Did we go on a wild goose-chase for nothing at three in the afternoon?"

"_Not_ for nothing. He…freaked when he realized how late it was at our place." Nico looked at his shoes. One of his laces had lost its aglet. Huh. "And by _late_, I mean that the sun came out."

"Not to mention you slammed the door on him."

"_Instinct_," Nico tried to stretch. His face was already turning red again.

Mitchell's laughs filled his ears, and he nudged Nico in the rib. "You've got it _bad._"

"I do _not—"_

"—okay, I get that you're an all-powerful demon-spawn or whatever with amazing powers, but did you _really_ have to steal the last Fruit Roll-Up?"

Four people came out of Walgreens—three girls and one boy, who was the shortest of the bunch. He looked to the three of them irately, hands fluttering in the air like they had their own puppet show. None of them paid notice to him.

All three girls faced Nico. Literally.

Nico shouldn't have had a reason to stare back. Except—two of them were dressed the same way Jason was the last time Nico saw him: black hoodie, black hat, and nearly every inch of skin covered by clothing. The third girl was tan, looking of Native American descent, and looked less inconspicuous to the other two—an Indie band t-shirt and a pair of jeans two sizes too big and rolled midway up her calves.

Both black hoods held two six-packs of coconut milk.

"Do you know them?" Mitchell asked, unfazed. Nico supposed they _did_ get stranger things in New York.

"Uh." Was all Nico could conjure. He couldn't figure out why they were staring at them—him, in particular—nor could he figure out why two of them were dressed like _Jason. _

"Hey, _you._" Beneath the darkness of her hood and visor, one of the girls grinned. She waltzed over to Nico and quickly wrapped an arm around him. Nico stiffened. "Haven't seen you in a while. You're all that Jason talks about, you know."

_Jason?_

The girl pulled the hood away from her face, and Nico already knew he'd never seen her before in his life. She had terrifying, feral blue and black hair that was peeking through her cap.

"Yeah," said the girl dressed in less suspicious clothes. She gave off a neutral demeanor before joining the other girl. "Haven't seen him in a while. You know where he is?"

"Do I know you?" Nico retorted.

"Well," said the one beside him, "You smell like my _brother_, so for the time being, I'm going to say yes, you do."

"_What_?"

This time, all three girls turned around and stared down their short fourth-party. He twitched, eyes wide and lips stressed in comical irritation before he looked to the sky and muttered something in Spanish under his breath—which was probably the English equivalent to, _Fiiiine. _Then without warning, he scurried to Mitchell's side and swung an arm over the taller boy's shoulder. Or tried to—before grabbing Mitchell by the wrist and dragging him back to the store.

"Wait—" Mitchell frowned. "What are they going to do with him?"

"Oh, ask a few questions, maybe crack open a beer and then share a drink over how moronic Jay can be." The shorter boy waved his hand dismissively and rolled his eyes. Of course—Nico didn't overlook how familiarly and affectionately the new stranger referred to Jason. "As my late Grandpa Sammy would say: 'If a Valdez—by obviously rare chance—can't fix it, then go back into the store and see if they restocked the Fruit Roll-Ups.'"

"Did he really say that?"

"It changes from generation-to-generation." Rolling his eyes, the boy saluted his friends and returned inside with Mitchell in tow. "Peace out, Scary Pretty Girls."

Mitchell tightened the scarf over his neck, looked over his shoulder, and mouthed _Help!_ to his otherwise preoccupied best friend.

Nico groaned.

And as soon as Mitchell was out of his—their—their peripheral, Nico found himself against the wall. Not _forcefully_—but still with enough discomfort that made Nico want to get out of there. Like, _now. _

To his surprise, Feral Eyes only sighed. She glared up in the air, fists trembling, before sucking in a breath and relaxing. Then, she pulled out a wallet from her back pocket and two ID pictures. One with her and one with Jason. "My name is Thalia Grace. And I'm assuming you met my brother, Jason, because your clothes _reek _of him."

"That's assuming that you and I are talking about the right Jason," Nico responded tersely. He glared at her and readjusted his hoodie and self. The realization hit him—and he pressed a hand to his face.

It was _coincidently_ the same hoodie he wore when Jason's hands were all over the place last week.

"Judging from the way you're smacking yourself, I'm going to conclude that we _are._" This Thalia's wryness and immediate air of wit made Nico think of himself. And just a little bit of Percy—which failed to make him feel any better. "Look, he's a little bit taller than I am and has this scar on his lip from the time he tried to eat a stapler. Can't be too hard to miss."

"You two look _nothing_ like," Nico snapped back in irritation. "And he did _what_?"

"He was two." To his surprise, Thalia retracted her grip, gaze wistful. She sighed softly and ran a hand through her hair. Her demeanor was akin to every single one Nico had until he and Hazel came to terms with Bianca's death.

She…_did_ have cold fingers, like Jason did.

Nico relinquished a sigh. "You look a lot better off than he did."

The last thing he expected was a smile over the face of a girl who was close to killing him five minutes ago. This Thalia Grace snorted and rolled her eyes. She took two steps back so Nico could finally breathe and placed the cap over her head again. "That's because that idiot has it in his mind that self-sacrificing is the only way he can live. The way Jace feeds on coconut milk and mineral powder—I could puke."

_Okay_ then. Nico knew her for all of ten minutes and already they were on the same page.

The other dark-hooded girl pulled the hood away from her head. She had a different skin pigment than the other two—a soft complexion that was on the lighter scale for bronze—and glossy black hair that was exquisitely pulled into a braid down her shoulder. Clothes aside, Nico couldn't help thinking she looked like she belonged to royalty. "What did he look like when you saw him?"

He decided to omit the fact that he was studying in the medical field. Instead, Nico stuffed his hands in the hoodie that Thalia was too interested in and shrugged.

"Don't lie," the same girl said sharply. Like reading his mind.

"He looked bad," he confessed reluctantly. "And then good. I mean—it was out here, actually, that I ran into him. He could barely walk until I got him some food and that coconut milk." Nico wanted to reason that the mysterious Walgreens Hobo was just insanely hungry, but he knew that the math didn't add up with that explanation.

"Well he can't survive on that long." The third girl frowned and Nico suddenly felt dizzy. Her voice mixed with something else as sweet as honey in his ear, heart jumping like it wanted to leap right out of his chest. "His blood lust is probably killing him."

_What? _

The royal-looking one sighed. "He's an idiot, Thalia. Your brother."

"Don't have to tell me twice," Thalia muttered. "I'm going to kill him when I find him. Then I'm going to convince him to find a _blood partner_ already and kill him all over again."

She scrutinized Nico carefully from head to toe before her face scrunched.

"I'm surprised he didn't just ask _you_. Jason always was weird, but I guess you're pretty cute."

Impulse got the better of him, and Nico eyed her back. He didn't know why—it just felt like the right thing to do. "I ran into him twice. The last time was last week, and I haven't seen him since. What do you mean by _blood partner?_"

Nico wasn't sure how to feel about Walgreens Hobo's supposed sister calling the aforementioned party a hemophiliac. On one hand, cool, blood was an interesting topic, and on the other, _wow_ there was something that happened outside of Twilight fanfiction and other teen novels.

"Huh." Thalia gave him another onceover, and Nico had the impression she was sizing him up. "Jason's a vampire."

**-x-**


	2. Chapter 2

**-x-**

**Chapter II**

**-x-**

"So we're going to have company," Nico said. "Is that alright?"

"That's okay." Hazel kissed him sweetly on the cheek, which was when Nico realized she had her backpack strapped over her shoulder. "I'm going with Frank to see his grandmother. We'll be back on Monday."

"Okay." Wait a minute. Nico snaked a hand around her arm before she made it out the door. "Wait, you're going to _Canada?_"

Her immediate wince gave her away. Nico almost wanted to smack her.

"You are _not_ going to Canada."

"Grandma Zhang really wants to see me!" Hazel protested. She crossed her arms and held her ground. "You know Frank doesn't like leaving her alone too long."

"And _why_ can't she come to Manhattan?" Nico scowled and held the door open—fully expecting her to retreat to her room.

"Because the Zhang House has history to it. She doesn't want to leave her roots." She rolled her eyes, standing even taller next to him. Hazel was to the core a sweet person, but it didn't make her any less stubborn. "Nico, I'm _eighteen! _Don't you think I can get a _little bit_ of leeway?"

"Sure, if you weren't _leaving the country._"

"Nico. Please?" Hazel looked him in the eye this time. Her gold irises hardened, eyebrows furrowed together. She not only wanted to go to be alone with her boyfriend for the next few days, but because she was worried. Nico knew Grandma Zhang was sickly and alone by herself at home. Frank to Nico was a little bland and a bit on the awkward side, but he knew Grandma Zhang being sick was probably eating the poor guy up.

"Eh." Thalia slung an arm over Nico's shoulder. "I say just let her go. Canada is literally _right there._"

"Been to Canada," Piper said. She nudged Reyna in the arm and shrugged. "Good gelato."

"Good everything." Reyna nodded in agreement and tipped her hat to Nico's sister.

Who stared at all three women carefully. Hazel's lips contorted into a frown and she turned to Nico. "Should I be concerned?"

"What—that I have three women coming to spend the night with me?" Nico rolled his eyes.

"You shouldn't," Piper said—and Nico's gaze immediately fell back to his sister. He felt the disturbing sweetness of Piper's voice craw up his spine. Whether she meant to do that or not, Nico definitely couldn't tell.

It was either Nico breaking down that _sleeping in an apartment by himself with three women_ or Piper's melodic voice, but Hazel relinquished. She stared at Nico with _that_ look—the one where Nico was going to end up in knots if he still said no. "I won't judge your sleeping arrangements if you let me go with Frank."

"Out of the _country_?"

Hazel was a cruel force.

"Fine." Sorting out Nico's now-crazy life would be a lot easier (and safer) if she was literally in different said country. She threw her arms around him with a happy squeal and kissed him on the cheek again before disappearing in the elevator. "But you better sleep in different beds!"

"You were going to say yes anyway." Thalia sniggered. "Weren't you?"

"Then she'd _know_ she can get away with almost everything," Nico grumbled. He shut the door behind him and retreated to the pantry for macaroni. Ten minutes earlier, he'd gotten a text from Mitchell that read, _Going shopping at the mall, what's your pants size?_ and knew he wouldn't be seeing his best friend for the rest of the night.

With no immediate food available and already exhausted from social interaction, Nico wasn't planning on going out again.

He turned around—

"Who is _that_ girl?" Piper asked immediately. "Look at the _legs_ on her!"

Legs. Ugh. Really?

"Don't forget the buffoon on her shoulder," Reyna pointed out. She sounded exasperated. "She could do better."

Thalia kicked her legs over the kitchen counter, perched on a stool with a beer in hand. She instantly made herself at home.

Rolling his eyes, Nico looked over Reyna's shoulder. "That's Annabeth. She doesn't live here, but she takes that guy—Percy—home when he gets too drunk at my neighbor's place." He debated on it before adding, "They're not dating."

"Can't hold his liquor, eh?" Thalia hummed and opened up a second bottle of beer. "Wuss."

She _definitely_ was a spitting image of Percy Jackson. Nico was about to berate her for mooching off his alcohol—but this whole night was giving him a headache. Once the water was done boiling on the stove, he dumped four cups of pasta in the pot and popped open his own bottle.

His phone buzzed.

**Mitchell K: **_Leo found some cute pants that'll go well with your complexion! :D _

Nico glared at his phone. "Is Leo that friend of yours?"

"Jason's friend," Thalia responded. She took another swig of her bottle and sighed. "Really? No rum and coke?"

"I'm letting you crash here for the—_day_. Not to have a drinking game with you." Nico ran his hand through his hair. He was going to go _bald_ from this day alone, and it wasn't going to be pretty.

"Vodka?"

_Ugh. _Walking back to the fridge, Nico pulled the said bottle of vodka out of his freezer.

_**WOOSH! **_

"What the—" Nico whirled around, only to see Reyna and Piper jump out of his window. "_HEY!" _

"Vampire and siren, remember?" Thalia didn't budge. She opened the bottle of vodka and somehow summoned two shot glasses. "Trust me. They've been through worse."

She held out one of the glasses and Nico didn't hesitate gulping it down. Through the window, Annabeth was now entranced by the girls as they surrounded her—both unscathed.

A feat like that was one of the reasons Nico decided to believe Thalia. He didn't like the fact that she was drinking everything he owned (but that would quickly be fixed when the Stoll Brothers barged into his room at four in the morning. Alcohol and driving Nico up the wall were how they apologized.)

Reyna was as pale—paler than Jason, with visible fangs when she opened her mouth. She seemed ruthless—and although she could control that so-called _bloodlust_, Nico saw her eyeing different people with different problems. They walked passed a man with a bloody nose on the way to Nico's apartment, and she stared at him until he turned the corner. Nico ran into her once by accident, and was certain that he now had frostbite.

Piper, on the other hand, had a voice that added to her beauty. Nico thought they were interesting and pretty in their own way, but when Piper spoke, she commanded the attention of anyone lingering in a ten-mile radius. The sweetness in her voice was _hypnotizing. _Sirens were part of Greek Mythology and were beautiful monster-creatures that lured men to their deaths. When Nico asked how being away from the sea factored into the equation, she responded with, "I hate following the school."

Thalia was the interesting case. She mentioned being a _fourth_ vampire and looked at Nico wolfishly, like she was waiting for him to pee himself. Her complexion (face still looking nothing at all like Jason's) was a better color than either Jason or Reyna, and she was a lot more animated. Something told Nico that she hated staying still as much as _he_ did.

Their phones buzzed at the same time. Nico unlocked his phone again, hoping for someone—_anything_ that would send him back to a world filled with rationality. Instead—he was met with a picture of the short boy from earlier—Leo—covered in six scarves and holding up a pair of dark red pants.

**Mitchell K: **_:D! _

"Leo says he's drowning in scarves and that he hates all of us, even 'random skeleton guy.'" Thalia chuckled softly under her breath and poured another glass of vodka for herself. "I'm assuming that's you."

Nico grunted. He quickly texted Mitchell back with the correct pants size and _demanded_ Mitchell _not_ to buy those pants. Looking back to the window, Nico found out that Annabeth, Reyna, and Piper were all gone while Percy was slumbering on a bench—strategically laying on his side.

"They'll be back," Thalia assured.

"So this whole _blood lust_ thing." Nico's gaze narrowed. "Real?"

"Very. Reyna especially has to practice patience because of it." Thalia shook her head, apparently remembering things she wasn't proud of. She shut her eyes for a brief moment before turning his way. "She's recently turned."

"By you and Jason?"

"No. Gods—no. Jason gave her some pointers though. I'm—mostly werewolf now. It lowers _my_ inner hemophiliac a bit, but Reyna needs to feed at least twice a week so she doesn't fall into fever. Or, you know." Thalia's gaze narrowed. "Die."

"That's a bit morbid, don't you think?" Nico muttered quietly. "And werewolf?"

She skipped the latter entirely. "Since Jason's only a fourth, he's able to schmoose by for a few weeks with coconut milk."

"Yeah, but coconut juice only acts as a saline solution." Nico's eyebrows furrowed. "He'd have to make up for the lack of nutrients and minerals usually found in blood by using supple—oh."

"He hates taking someone else's blood without permission. It kind of weirds him out. So he drinks six packs of coconut juice like they're the vapor version of cigarettes and ends up getting nauseous and what not from the lack of actual blood intake." Thalia huffed. "God, I don't even want to _think_ of when the last time he had _real human blood_ was."

"Can't he turn into a werewolf the same way you did?"

"Can't bite him. Girls only." Thalia stared at the bottle of vodka. Nico had the feeling it was going to be empty by the time Piper and Reyna came back. She looked as worried as Nico felt when Hazel forgot to call him in the middle of the night.

He was still wrapping his mind around the fact that he was believing _any_ of this. The vodka needed to kick in within the next few minutes. Seriously.

"You owe me a new bottle," Nico said after a long silence.

Shrug. Thalia looked back at him nonchalantly. She dug in her pocket and pulled out a crumpled twenty.

He debated shoving the bottle down his throat.

**-x-**

At 8AM, Nico thought about taking up Thalia's offer to restock his vodka with more…_colorful_ drinks. The Stoll Brothers were probably still feeling their all-nighter high, so he could probably get something even more rare and rich from them. However—the idea of Thalia meeting Travis and Connor gave him a sudden migraine.

Piper and Reyna knocked on his door not too long after Thalia dozed off on his couch—both wearing parts of each other's clothes and one of Annabeth's old orange camp shirts.

Nico glared at them blearily on the other side of his window, while they somehow managed to look back at him outside the third floor. Once he let them in, they collapsed in a neat semi-circle around their third companion.

(He wasn't going to _ask_ about the orange shirt, _or_ why one of the sleeves looked torn.)

Satisfied, Nico changed into pajamas and decided to call it a day.

Then someone knocked on the door.

Seriously? Nico groaned and pressed his face into the wall for two seconds of peace before the same rhythmic pattern continued. The last he checked, Percy was still sleeping peacefully on the bench outside. He was pretty sure Percy'd even woken up at some point and stripped down to boxers.

If he went to bed now, then he could save himself from having a conversation that took half his brain cells to compute.

_KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK _

On the other hand, he was never going to fall asleep if that incessant racket didn't stop. He gritted his teeth and yanked the door open. "_What?_" Oh.

Jason. Weird hoodie-wearing, black-jeans cladded, the-one-who-started-it-all Jason. He was practically wearing a face mask and looked ready to puke his guts (or whatever might actually _be _in his stomach) out. Nico stared at him in disbelief before bolting down the hall to close all the windows.

The other boy frowned. "You don't have to—"

"You can take your hood down now." Nico already put up the blinds in his apartment. He'd seen how raggedy Reyna looked. Just a fourth of that would make _him_ puke.

"Why'd you do that?

"Because I saw how bad Reyna got. I know you're only a fourth, but better safe than sorry." A sigh left Nico's lips. He closed his eyes for only a second—and felt himself doze off. Laughter from the other boy woke him up.

"You're _really_ not a morning person, are you?"

"Says the guy who can't go out into the sun anyway?"

"Do you mean 'step foot outside'?"

"_Shut it._"

Usually Nico's innate grouchiness made others run away. He could offend without really meaning to, with his mouth and brain working before his common sense—which was probably half the reason why getting into a relationship was hard. Other people got mad _constantly. _

Yet Jason only laughed again. His chuckle was like electricity, which struck Nico with the energy and motivation to stay there.

With a heavy sigh, the shorter boy dropped to the ground and crossed his legs.

Jason blinked at him, unsure of what to do before he perched beside Nico. His eyes went from one end of the hall to the other. If Nico'd been looking, he would see that the blond looked just as haggard. "So. You ran into my sister?"

"She said I smell like you and then bit me."

"_What?_" He sat upright.

The edge of Nico's lips curled into a dull smirk.

"You little—" With barely a glance, he could _see_ Jason undo the fib. Jason snickered like a child.

_Now_ Nico saw the family resemblance.

"I can't believe she's in town." Grimacing, Jason slumped against the wall and looked up to the ceiling. His expression was weak—dull, even.

"What—you weren't expecting her?"

"No, not _really._"

Nico frowned. He cocked his head toward the other boy, fully examining Jason. And despite the fact Jason had the ferocity in his voice, Nico decided that Jason looked even worse than he did the first time they met. "Then why would you be here?"

Red glowed in Jason's pale cheeks, contrasting with that skin. His complexion only made Nico grimace. The expression over Jason's face was worrisome. While he was displeased with his sister's sudden appearance, Nico could see why Thalia was concerned. It was Jason's eyes alone that showed any viable emotion. His lips remained at a flat crescent, so sadistically faint that Nico was sure that he would have preferred a kicked puppy (he then made a mental note to find a new metaphor for those dumb eyes. _Puppy_ was of course the exact opposite of what he was.)

Then, Jason shrugged. "You kissed me and then shut the door on my face. I've been trying to read the signals, but I wasn't sure if you wanted to see me again."

"What _signals?" _At this very moment, Nico was sure Mitchell woke up to laugh at him.

"I—" Jason's demeanor attuned to his thoughts. His eyebrows furrowed and he stared at the ceiling. "_Why _are you housing my sister, ex-girlfriend, and partner?"

"Why are _you_ changing the subject?" Nico retorted. He rolled his eyes. Jason had the same attention span (or there lack of) that he did the last time that they were together.

"Are we really going to play this game?" The irritation in Jason's voice jolted Nico awake.

His gaze flitted back to Jason as he hoped his face didn't betray him. Jason having a backbone was something Nico should have seen coming. Someone with a body like _that_ couldn't be as delicate as a daisy. Whether beneath the shock he was offended or impressed, Nico had no clue.

"Sorry," Jason said immediately. His entire demeanor contorted and he ducked his head between his knees. "God, I—just didn't want to get anyone involved."

"That's a little too late. Your sister drank my vodka." Nico wasn't sure whether or not he was trying to make a joke. He did see, however, the way Jason's eyebrows furrowed.

The other boy pressed his palms at the back of his head, forehead still between knees, and sighed unsteadily. At a loss of what to say, Nico tried to run every word of comfort in his head. He appreciated those self-sacrificial, all-is-noble-and-well characters in cinema and books. They were the only ones that had the common sense to get anything _done_.

He pulled out of his thoughts when Jason had the gall to dig into his pocket and pull out money. Nico groaned. "_Seriously_?"

Pale blue eyes looked back to him, wary, before he placed it between them.

Nico was too tired to argue. Instead, he took his hands out of his sweat pants and crossed them over his chest. "So. Vampire, huh?"

Silence. Jason's gaze went from staring at Nico to staring at the wall on the other end of the hall. "Technically, I _did_ tell you."

"Yeah. And I thought you were trying to cheer me up."

"You laughed, didn't you?"

"I don't _laugh_ at familial situations," Nico snapped back unintentionally. "Even _if_ I'm still trying to wrap my head around it."

Judging by the sudden grimace over Jason's lips, Nico knew his message was loud and clear. The blond knotted his hands in his hair and glared dumbly at his shoelaces. "It's complicated."

"Okay?"

Jason's demeanor hardened—bittersweet and wary like the first instance that either of them spoke of their parents. Nico didn't understand that reaction back then, but the irony of it flooded his senses now. Jason wasn't just an optimistic, grateful pushover from the streets. Instead, he chuckled with a light baritone that was…fitting. "Why did you tell me about yours?"

Shrug. "Vampire pheromones?"

Jason snickered like a child and straightened his back against the wall. "I don't—I don't have that."

"Then tell me what you have." Nico wasn't going to get any sleep anyway. His good conscience made it hard for him to sleep when the guilt and worry ate at his brain. With a quiet sigh, his back flattened against the wall and he crossed his leg. Dark eyes looked up to Jason with curiosity.

Blue eyes looked back to him, flickering with hesitation.

"I've got time," Nico insisted.

"My dad. He…" Jason glared at his hands. "He sleeps around a lot."

"Married?"

"Yeah. To one woman." The blond chuckled bitterly and pressed his hand against the back of his head once more. "Like, I don't know why she doesn't _leave_ him. He has at least nine other kids, excluding Thalia and myself. At least she and I are from the same mother."

"That…makes no sense."

"Yeah. Juno is infertile. And I don't know if that's what turns Dad off or if he just likes…sex. Then he met my mom—half succubus, half vampire, and, well, decided to have as much sex as he wanted with her." Jason sighed. "You can guess the end result."

"So hypothetically, you're one-fourth vampire and one-fourth incubus." Nico frowned.

"One-fourth incubu—wow. You got it right the first time. Not a lot of people do." The smile over Jason's lips was tight, but mirthful.

Wait. Nico placed a hand over his own mouth. "Did you _cut_ me when we…?"

"Fangs," the other boy responded. His cheeks glowed and he looked at the ceiling. He leaned over, propped his elbow on his calf, and rested a cheek in his palm. "They come out when I…" Jason didn't bother finishing that sentence.

Nico wondered if his face matched the same shade as Jason's—and what the end of that sentence was supposed to be. (Both—he decided to ignore.)

"And no hypothetical," Jason continued when Nico's mental capacity could do nothing but squirm. He smiled kindly in that sickeningly-sweet Prince Charming kind of way and snorted. "I am what I am."

"I thought vampires were like zombies, only with a brain." Nico, of course, was a fanatic of these things when he was younger. Ripley's Believe It or Not was one of his favorite books, and everything he could get his hands on about the mythological creatures. His belief and enthusiasm died years ago. A vampire's body wasn't alive—not like humans were. "The proper amount of chromosomes aside, how is it possible that your mother was able to procreate the human way?"

"Semantics."

"How does that make _any sense?_"

This time, Jason's lips curled into a grin. He laughed—strained, yet sounding so close to being free. It made Nico nudge the blonde in the ribs and laugh a little too.

Until Jason stopped. His gaze hollowed pathetically and his smile wilted.

Nico sobered and stared at his feet. Hazel was the only one who ever came to him with a problem. That changed now that Frank was in her life—so that brought his experience with dealing with people down to nothing. "So?"

"So? Ah." Even Jason seemed to forget what they were talking about. His eyes squeezed shut. "Juno. My stepmother. She has access to a blood bank and I have no idea where."

"And you need to get to it."

"I need to get rid of it."

Uh. Nico cocked his head to the other boy and found that—no, Jason wasn't kidding. The look over Jason's face was stern and cold, and a little reminiscent to Nico's terrible joke days ago about the Jason who was raised by wolves and destined to lead armies. There was a little bit of _lone wolf_ and _self-sacrificial moron_ laced in that demeanor. His mind halted when he ran Jason's prior sentence through his mind.

Blood banks were for _patients_. Usually at a _hospital. _Whatever this _Juno's _profession was clearly held a minor importance in comparison to her vampire stepson. This was a case of nepotism that Nico wasn't sure he would ever be familiar with.

At the same time, this was apparently Jason's source of life.

"You're only a fourth, right?" Nico frowned. "You don't need the blood as much as a…purebred?"

One shoulder went up while the other sagged. Jason hunched over, looking like a golden retriever that was trying to undo a math problem. (Nico was going to have to stop with the dog metaphors. However, those sky blue eyes weren't what he imagined when it came to _demon spawn._)

Jason shook his head precisely, the wrinkle in his eyebrow pinching closer together. "Reyna's only a few years old, vampire-wise. She needs the blood more than I do. Once she's well and able, we'll wean her off and survive on coconut milk. She'll still need to feed on blood, but hopefully in longer timespans."

So the small talk about coconut juice being used as a saline solution was actually relevant. Nico felt his face twitch when he couldn't conjure an immediate response.

"Juno and Dad are like _gods. _They have everything that suits their fancy." Shaking his head miserably, Jason looked back to Nico with fear in his orbs. "They are the last two people that you want in a hospital, Nico. That blood is better used for other people."

"Then how do _you_ live?"

Nico had to hand it to the other boy. The next smile was mischievous and lived up to even Percy's standards. Jason shrugged. "I have my ways."

Ergh. Nico rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Then, "My…dad's girlfriend once threatened to turn me into a dandelion."

"Wow_._ Oh my god—_wow._" To his surprise, Jason actually laughed. He stood to his feet and held a hand out. "You're one weird kid, Nico di Angelo."

"Says the weird kid who's been a vampire this entire time." Nico snorted. He took Jason's hand and pulled himself up. Then stumbled—before his bare toes touched the tips of Jason's shoes. He looked up to the taller boy, who held a bit of scruff down his pale jawline. Jason's hands were cold, but Nico's face was warm.

Then there were those eyes. For _demon spawn_, Nico saw no hatred in those irises. There was nothing but the sky in the reflection of those orbs—the stupid, stupid sky. Jason had the nerve to smile, his lips curling and the faint curve of fangs beneath them. "Are we really going to play this game?"

"Who said it was still a game?" Nico's gaze narrowed and he smirked.

"_Wooow_, I leave as a distraction for like, a whole night, and I find you making oogly-eyes with Jack Skellington."

Both boys turned their attention down the hall, met with the sight of the same boy from last night—well-accessorized in the ways Mitchell knew best. Jason guffawed, looking at the boy with obvious familiarity before he finally lost it.

Jason clutched his ribs, head dipping back with a howl of laughter, and he hit the wall. "_Leo?!_"

It was very _Percy _of him. Seriously—Nico needed to figure out how these crazy people swarmed around him instead of the normal ones.

Leo, the short Hispanic boy from the night before, was dressed in two of the well color-coordinated scarves Mitchell took photos of the night before, along with a pair of blue skinny jeans that clearly used to live in the back of Nico's closet, a white v-neck beneath snazzy brown suspenders, and a pair of hideous cowboy boots. The gold trim on those boots matched the stud in one of his ears.

Ugh. "I think I need sleep." Nico touched his forehead and turned toward the door.

He was cut off when Jason whirled him around to stare at the gaudy hipster-cowboy collaboration that could only be explained as a _fucking disaster. _

With no shame, Leo turned around and wriggled his hips in front of them. "You think these jeans compliment the curvature of my ass?"

"I think that question overlooks the realm of science," Jason replied instantly. He grinned, clearly not missing a beat, before they fistbumped like obnoxious fifteen-year-olds. "You are the only diversion I need in my life, Valdez."

"Why, Mister Maximus, I didn't know you cared so much." Leo snorted and dragged the boy down by the end of his jacket. An impish grin spread over his lips. He looked like a cat with its claw stuck in a curtain. "You owe me big, you know that, right?"

"What happened to Mitchell?" Nico frowned.

"Well, I snuck out of the dorm room—which really turned into, I tripped, fell into a wall, and Mitchie and I shared a lovely sunlit omelet in the commons—" Leo threw his hands up and down in the air, in several unneeded gestures that he didn't notice. He looked like a child that should never be near a coffee machine. With another impish grin, he looked wickedly to the both of them. "And then he went to work and I've been wandering around trying to find this apartment complex for the last twenty minutes."

Psychotic brown eyes flashed over to Nico immediately, and they seemed to grow more psychotic.

"Leo Valdez, repair boy extraordinaire! That's what Beauty Queen calls me anyway—I don't have any freaky demon powers but I've set a great deal of things on fire." Grinning, Leo took hold of Nico's hand and shook it with the same amount of mock-enthusiasm that was in his voice. He yanked Nico to the other side of him, and proceeded to throw an arm around the taller boy. "So, _Jack_—"

"Nico," Jason corrected. "Nico di Angelo."

"Ah—Nico, which derives from _Nicholas_, which comes from Nike, which of course means Victory of the People. And you, being tall, dark, and scrawny, means your name is—on technicality—Victory of the Angels." Leo wiggled his eyebrows.

Um. Nico cocked his head to Jason, who had the nerve to hide half his face under his hood. Both groaned.

"Do you have a name fetish?" Nico asked flatly.

"Nah, I just like freaking people out. That's my third superpower, which follows my amazing good looks." Leo smirked. He released them, feet practically landing on the floor, and leaned against the door, AKA Nico's only exit. "Nice Hades band there. You show Jack—"

"_Nico._"

"—the Jupiter one that I got you?" Again, Leo went on a tangent without precaution. A _fourth_ ability of his must have been the ability to annoy—because Nico was clearly ready to smack him over the head.

However, patient Jason chuckled softly to himself and nodded.

The next smile over Leo's lips was more tamed. "Lovebirds, eh? You _dog." _

"Can I punch him?" Nico grumbled.

"He grows on you after the first twelve hours," Jason assured. His own smile weakened as he slapped a hand over Leo's back. Eyebrows furrowing together, they shared one glance before Leo's smile wilted as well.

With a dramatic sigh, the shortest boy grabbed Jason by the hand and yanked him into the apartment. "C'mon! Let's satisfy your dumb hemophilia!"

Blink.

With no other questions, Nico had no choice but to follow them in.

**-x-**

"How's the trip so far?"

"_It's alright. We're going to a diner for breakfast. Frank and I hit a snag with a flat tire—"_

"Flat tire?" Nico frowned and instinctively turned around, like his sister was talking to him from the dining table. He could practically hear Frank's whimpers in the background. "Do I need to call someone?"

"_No, you don't._" Hazel's next sound was a tiny laugh, followed by some smooching sounds that Nico didn't need to hear this early in the morning. _"Frank's a good man, you know. He wouldn't let anything happen to me—nor would he let anything happen to you." _

"I know," Nico assured. He just…hated that he couldn't take care of her anymore. Clutching the phone more tightly, he looked up to the two boys sitting at the table. Jason's big hands were fastened to Leo's waist, while the shorter boy wriggled around and took off both scarves. Standard procedure—from the looks of it.

"_He's no taking me away from you_," Hazel said—reading Nico's mind as usual. _"He's just opening up a new place in my heart._"

"You know I actually like him." Nico snorted. They'd been dating for two years now and Frank had Nico's blessing if they ever decided to get hitched. He had no clue where his sister and, by extension, his sister's boyfriend got the idea that he loathed Frank.

"_Maybe you two should bond_," Hazel said. _"Like some guy time together._"

Nico groaned—in the same pitch as Frank. Frank was quickly swatted, if the sudden _Ow! _Meant anything.

"_He __**does**__ know how to play Mythomagic, you know._" Hazel tutted over the phone.

"Yeah," Nico agreed, "but he sucks at it. And that game is for _babies_, Haze."

"_Yeah, sure. You were practically __**drooling**__ when Jason showed you that armband." _

Uh. He swallowed hard and looked back over to Jason. Who was kissing Leo. Like—_really_ kissing Leo. Hard, on the mouth, with those firm hands supporting Leo by the arch of his back. "You saw that?"

"_You were practically on his lap_._" _

Red dusted over Leo's cheeks—flushed with heat as his hands scrambled for support. Within seconds, Jason pulled away, his nose grazing the other boy's jawline. He ducked, burying his face in the crook of Leo's neck. There was a twitch from Leo's end, before his eyes drooped sleepily, and the color returned to Jason's complexion.

Nico frowned. "Yeah. I'm not the only one."

**-x-**

"What do you want to eat tonight?"

"Hmm. Dim sum."

"What," Frank grinned, "you know a place that's actually open after seven?"

Nico shrugged back and pocketed his hands. He hid a smile when Hazel laughed and shared a kiss with her boyfriend, then tossed the bottle of Gatorade to their dorky archer. "When's the tournament?"

"This Saturday. You coming?" Her cheek rested against Frank's chest, with a broad smile curled against her lips. "You can bring Jason along with you too."

"Is it in the morning?"

"Yeah." Frank's eyebrows furrowed. "Will you come?"

"Probably not him." Nico shrugged. "Me, though."

"Also good," Frank chimed. He fastened his grip over Hazel's waist and brought her up for a chaste kiss on the lips.

"Hey!" At that moment, Percy Jackson saw it best to come over and high-five Frank. He wore a friendly grin as they fist-bump, then gave a hug to Hazel. His sea green eyes flashed with his usual excitement before moving on to Nico. "How've you been?"

"I saw you two days ago," Nico pointed out. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and tried his best not to frown.

Either Percy didn't notice the wryness at the bottom of Nico's voice, or he chose to ignore it. He studied Nico briefly with the same smile before shrugging, then turned to Frank once more. "I heard you two went to Canada to see your grandmother. How's she doing?"

Frank's own demeanor wavered. He collected his quiver and bow from the ground before pulling his duffel bag over his shoulder. The smile on his face was obviously a struggle. "She's been better. Grandma doesn't want me to be away from school too long and she refuses to move down here so I can take care of her. I _hate_ it when she's that stubborn. But…I don't understand why she doesn't realize we're all that's left."

"She just wants what's best for you. Women show their love in different ways." Percy looked over to Hazel again warmly. "Right?"

"Annabeth would smack you if you just narrow it down to women," she replied.

"Annabeth smacks me all the time." Percy snorted. He shrugged, shoulders going to his ears before he ducked his head kindly. After that, he yanked Frank toward his teammates across the football field.

"Percy—wait, what are you_—OH MY GOD!_"

_**SPLAAAAASH! **_

Instantly, Frank was doused in two barrels of ice-cold Gatorade. His archery teammates cheered, _"WE LOVE YOU, FRANKIE!" _

With a cackle, Percy launched himself onto the other boy's back, duffel bag flying to the floor in one swift motion. Frank yelped and swung the other boy around. "You are so _dead_, Jackson!"

That barely got out between all of the laughing.

"Percy isn't even on the team," Nico pointed out. He watched as Percy crawled over Frank's shoulder blades and dangled over the bigger college student. "Why is he the one conducting the barrel drop?"

"You know Frank loves him like a brother." Hazel swatted her brother playfully and smiled. "C'mon, he's probably going with us to dinner."

"Pass."

"Why?" She arched a curious eyebrow and looped an arm around her brother's. "He's a nice guy. I don't know why you keep giving him grief."

Yeah. Hazel could pick up on the fact that Percy rubbed him the wrong way, but Nico had no intention of ever telling her why. Shaking his head, he turned toward the bus stop. "Reyna, Piper, and the others might wake up soon. I should go check."

"Right. I never thought I'd meet people that slept more than we did." With a tiny laugh, she retreated and joined her boyfriend. Percy immediately ruffled her hair and pulled her into a hug.

She hadn't batted an eyelash when Nico said that the crazy bunch at their house would be staying there for a few more days. It'd been two weeks now. They all came and went, depending on why they were needed.

Thalia had gone back to her pack. According to Jason, the human half of her was practically gone. Her pack leader—a _werewolf_—was a woman named Artemis. She took in several human (women) and those who weren't when they could no longer live in their current situation.

She helped people—and Thalia was second-in-command. As for Piper and Reyna, they were busy orbiting Annabeth like she was their world. Nico noticed here and there that Annabeth's usually-tan skin would pale, while Reyna's complexion was much better.

The blood lust was still there, Jason explained when Nico was curious. But being a werewolf came first. According to him, Thalia hated being anything else but her own person. She valued her relationship with Jason more than anything and vice versa, like Nico and Hazel, but snipped the roots she had to their parents when she was fifteen. Being half werewolf—alongside being one-fourth succubus and one-fourth vampire—rid her of her father. She could feed on wolf's blood and it would last her for months.

Which was probably one of the reasons she looked healthier than Jason did.

Nico wouldn't believe any of this—if it wasn't for the little scene in his kitchen weeks ago. It was a good thing Mitchell bought all of those scarves—Leo Valdez would need them for that gruesome vampire-hickey on his neck.

Jason had been missing for the past three days. Piper was good at videogames and exchanged Cherokee Tribe stories to Frank as he told Chinese myths, while Reyna and Hazel discussed Puerto Rican and Louisianan dishes they could both make.

Leo came in and out of the apartment. He spent most of his time with Mitchell—and when Nico asked his friend and classmate about this, Mitchell hid under his hands until his face was no longer red. The three guests all explained that Jason's disappearance was all because he was a moron who hated getting other people involved. Nico had no trouble believing that.

They were nice enough—Nico had to admit that.

'

"So why don't you like him?"

The sudden intrusion of Jason's voice made Nico jump. He pretended it didn't bother him and carefully turned to the other boy. Jason looked like he did all the time: pale, with stunning blue eyes and an alluring smile that made Nico want to smack him. A tiny flush of color was in his cheeks, however, giving Jason an apricot glow.

Staring at that specifically, Nico asked, "I take it you and Leo met up first?"

"Actually, no." Jason touched the back of his head. "I…found my dad. And stepmom."

"What happened?" Nico turned fully so that they were facing each other. From the way Jason spoke about his stepmother, he was always on edge and anxious to please her. Jason tried to act cool, but when it came to his parents, Nico was sure that he had some inferiority complex.

"I got invited to dinner three nights in a row and got gifts." Jason wrinkled his nose and pulled the usual hood away from his face. "You interested in a pair of satin pajamas?"

"Please. I could probably three of me in your pants," Nico snorted. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Hazel's gaze. She waved and mouthed, _Hi, Jason_ before going back to converse with Annabeth. _God_, Nico knew better than to take that smile in. Her smile was nothing but pure evil.

"You want to get in my pants?" Cocking his head, Nico saw the little smile as it graced Jason's lips. It was full of amusement, mirth, and the tiny spark of mischief that reminded Nico of Jason's vodka-stealing sister. You couldn't be fooled with a face like that. Couldn't afford it. Nico'd seen that face grow serious when it came to quiet meetings with Jason's friends. _Dumb blonde_ only described part of him. (Absolute idiocy described a seventh, but that was an explanation for another day.)

"You look satisfied with that answer," Nico pointed out. His own lips curled into a smirk and he shook his head in disbelief. Really, he walked right into that one.

"You walked right into it. I couldn't help it." Jason cracked a grin and held his head high with pride.

"_Yeah. _Didn't think of that." Nico stuffed his hands in his pockets and arched an eyebrow expectantly. "So?"

"So after I got a tux fitting to join her at the opening of an art gallery, I told her that I don't want take blood from a blood bank when there are people out there that could really use it." Jason's eyebrows furrowed together and he shifted awkwardly between his feet. "I have an appointment next Tuesday."

"And you didn't say no?"

"She made it too hard to say no." The blond bit his lip before shaking his head in shame. "Then she shooed me out the door with a plate of cookies. You have _no clue_ how hard is to talk to her. You think she's so nice, because she acts like the model old-fashioned 40s wife who does nothing but cook and clean and solves problems for you. But she's so…_manipulative._"

That sounded familiar. Persephone's mother always forced Hazel and Nico to eat cereal when they crossed paths.

"Anyway—" Jason lifted his hands from his sweatshirt and reached for Nico's shoulders. Then stopped. Six inches of space were left before those fingers could make a landing. When Nico looked up, he saw Jason's face twist in curiosity and nervousness.

"Do you…want me to turn?" Nico asked wryly.

"I respect personal boundaries."

"Clearly."

"_Ahem_," Jason coughed. He shoved his hands back in his hoodie and smiled goofily. "Since I have free time between today and next Tuesday, I was wondering if you would want to go on a date. You know. With me. And if you're done with classes today, we could totally hang out."

Uh. "It's a Wednesday though."

"Is today not a good day for you then?" Jason's entire demeanor faltered, obviously heartbroken.

"No, I mean…" Nico twitched. His brain dubbed this moment to take a vacation and leave him to make a fool of himself. Nico stared back at Jason, unable to feel anything in his vacant head other than absolute embarrassment and fluster.

"So…it's a _good _time?" Blond eyebrows pinched together.

"No. Yes. Yes. No." Nico held his hands before him, calling a _time out_ and turned toward his sister. "Let me tell Hazel."

"Really?" A grin spread over those lips pleasantly. "Where do you wanna go?"

"Uh…"

**-x-**

"McDonald's? _Really_?"

"_Shut up_, I wanted a Big Mac_._" Nico instinctively elbowed Jason in the rib. He was met with a rich laugh—then felt a smile curl against his lips. They stood across the street, where the store behind them was closed for the day. Jason kept his hat on to avoid direct sight of bright light, but shed himself of the black hoodie. Nico caught himself staring at those muscles the moment he took it off.

That white complexion definitely looked healthier. That smile almost reached Jason's eyes—which were more distracting than Nico could stand. He couldn't put his finger on it, but the way Jason stared at him was satisfying.

"I can go in there. The light won't bother me." A blond eyebrow pushed into the air while Jason took the cap off his head. "Unless you were just checking me out."

"I think I liked you better when you were concerned for my personal space." Nico snorted. He hesitated before snatching Jason up by the arm and dragging the other boy across the street. There was a yelp—then Nico felt the too-cool touch of Jason's fingers under his palm.

It wasn't a bad sensation, Nico decided. The touch itself felt like something between ice cream on a hot day to snow in your underwear. There was still stuff Nico didn't understand—but from the way Jason described it, he inherited nothing amazingly spectacular and needed to drink blood a lot.

They got into the restaurant with Jason grinning from cheek-to-cheek and Nico hoping he wasn't red from head-to-toe. Jason already looked tired before their food was ready. When his number was called, Nico jumped up and retrieved both their trays.

"You didn't have to do that," Jason said when Nico returned.

The other boy shrugged and shoved the food toward his companion. "You're a lot weaker than you let on."

"It's not that," Jason protested. His voice sounded weak and uncertain. Then, he sat back in his chair and opened up his carton of chicken nuggets. Really—he was getting paler by the second. "I had this planned out more romantically in my head."

"Do tell," Nico mused. He twiddled with a French fry and nibbled on it.

A ragged smile curled over Jason's lips and he shook his head. "I was going to give you some flowers, follow you around so you could get any Wednesday errands out of the way. That kind of stuff. And then maybe go stargazing in the outskirts of the city if both you and I could sit still enough."

"Let's leave. You're not doing yourself any favors staying here." Nico gnawed on three more French fries before grabbing his tray. He was stopped when a hand looped around his wrist.

"No," Jason responded hurriedly. His eyebrows furrowed together. "I really wanted to do this."

Nico hesitated. He looked back to Jason's haggard appearance, trying his best not to look so worried. Jason wasn't making it easy though. But he had to remember—Jason already had twenty-one years of experience dealing with all of this. Probably with lower lows than going on a date in a brightly-lit area for the next two hours.

With a sigh, Nico sat back down and glared at his Big Mac.

Between his eyelashes, he saw a smile curl over Jason's lips.

"When's the last time you had access to blood?"

"That's not really a date question."

"_Jason._"

"This morning." Jason chewed on his lip before dousing one of his chicken nuggets in ranch. He glared at it and plopped it into his mouth. "Juno…I told you. The whole _blood bank_ thing. She gave me some stored blood, but that's the problem. Stored blood is…different. It's not…"

"A human being?" Nico made sure to keep his voice low. He watched Jason devour the piece of meat thoroughly.

"It's like drinking a watered down, diet pepsi." Wrinkling his nose, Jason took one full sip of his drink and licked his front teeth. From where Nico was sitting in their booth, he could see the faint hint of fangs in his mouth. "I guess my body knows the difference from flesh and plastic. And my conscience just makes it worse. Go figure."

"You ever think you're _too much_ of a good guy?"

"Here and there."

"Then you need to get to Leo soon," Nico speculated. He watched as Jason's eyes squeezed shut from exhaustion. The blond rubbed his forehead and pinched the bridge of his nose, like it would help him focus. "We can go after we're done here. I'll shoot Mitchell a text."

"That would probably be for the best," Jason breathed.

Once the agreement was reached, they ate in silence. Nico thought of all the errands he might as well get done if they were in this part of town and devoured the rest of his Big Mac. There was a project due for Chemistry next week, so Mitchell and he would have to get together _eventually_ to talk and catch up. Jason and he would also have to discuss living arrangements. While the past few weeks had been great together, Jason was probably going to be with his parents permanently soon. Which meant the group would probably be leaving.

"Do you have something against Leo?"

Nico snapped out of his ministrations when he heard a third-party. Jason looked back to him with an upturned eyebrow, uncertain. "What?"

"I…dunno. You just didn't look happy when you mentioned Leo." A frown fell over Jason's lips.

"I don't have a problem with him." Actually, Nico was focusing on schoolwork and living situations. But if they were going to talk about one of the four humans currently cohabitating in Nico's house, then they totally could. Narrowing his gaze, Nico watched Jason watch him. "I mean—I. I am a little confused about where the four of us stand."

"The four of us," Jason repeated. He blinked.

"Well—your friend says that he's acting like a decoy for my friend, but I feel like that's not even the case anymore and you and I had that weird kissing thing a few weeks back, but you were sucking his neck and giving him hickeys even though Mitchell is supplying him with scarves." Nico gasped for air when he was done. He stared at Jason fully, daring not to blink even once. "And now we're on a date."

He expected Jason to mock him and then he mock Jason back, but instead, the blond stared at him strangely—one eyebrow in the air and the other furrowed. Half of Jason's lip curled upward. "'_Weird kissing thing'?" _

"_Shut it._"

"What are you—ten?" A full grin graced Jason's lips. He nudged Nico beneath the table and sniggered. "Jeez—I try not to be a dick about it, but I would hope that my kissing you fit higher standards than just, '_weird kissing thing.'_"

"Well it _does_," Nico insisted. He blatantly kicked Jason beneath the table, satisfied with the sudden yelp he received in return, and felt his heart skip a beat once those blue eyes calmed. "Any normal person probably would have shooed you and your friends away if you told them you weren't human."

"True," the blond agreed. His chortles dissipated and he placed his hands on the table. He stared at Nico fully, observing him with fascination that Nico didn't think he deserved. "And yet you didn't."

"And yet I didn't."

"Why?"

"Because we live in New York and I feel stranger things have probably happened while I wasn't looking." Nico sighed. His gaze didn't falter, however, as he studied Jason himself. "And I must be really nice."

It was a mystery why Jason's smile suddenly looked bigger. He fiddled with his fifth nugget and nearly swallowed it whole. "Trust me. You're nicer than most people that I've met."

Nico took the adoration in Jason's eyes to heart. Of the many faces Jason showed him in the past two weeks, it was amazing how someone with a heroic and noble ego could also be humbled in the presence of his friends. Guys like Jason usually didn't give Nico a second look.

"Leo has been my blood partner since I was fifteen." Jason's gaze darted back and forth to see if anyone could hear their conversation—then he continued anyway. "Human blood is fresh. Piper—Sirens are known to lure sailors to their death at sea. We dated for a while, but—drinking her blood was like acid. Almost as bad as me trying to eat garlic."

"I can't believe you _tried_ that."

"It tasted good. You know, until my throat swelled up and I couldn't swallow it." Jason waved his hand dismissively. He let out another heavy breath and rubbed at his eyes. "I think I broke out in zits for a while too. Piper was great, but a relationship wasn't going to work if…_fluids_ were going to get me killed."

_Yeah._ Nico didn't want to know what fluids were passing between them.

"Leo is the only one in our group who's human. We've made a pact to keep him from getting turned in any form. But…" Jason crinkled his nose. "He helps a lot. Reyna and I have his consent to draw blood from him. And I feel bad, because those marks always take a long time to heal."

"But he's the only one you're confident that you can trust." Because unlike Nico and Leo, other people may try to turn Reyna and Jason into the government or get them killed. "_Plus_, your inner boy scout won't let you assault and suck blood from innocent people."

"I like to think it's one of my better qualities." Jason pressed a hand to his cheek.

"You make out with Leo beforehand. Reyna doesn't."

"Well that's because—" Jason began the explanation coolly before freezing. He locked eyes with Nico, scrutinizing the other boy like there was an answer hidden between those words. Nico tried his best to look uninterested—this was his way of laying everything out on the table, after all. "Is that what bothers you?"

Nico scoffed and tapped his fingers against his arm. "You asked me out on a date after I've seen you and him get to first base at least three times a week. Forgive me if I'm a little confused."

"And you're jealous?"

"You don't even know if I like you!"

"Well do you?" Jason frowned. "You said yes, didn't you?"

"_Of course_ I like you!" Nico hissed. He just—realized that he had no clue why they were arguing. Did this even count as banter? Twitching, Nico felt himself blush. "I mean—I would. Be interested in having a date that was away from a fast food restaurant. With you."

"You know, you would probably look more approachable if you smiled more."

"And who's the one giving me a headache?" Rolling his eyes with as much emphasis as he could, Nico finished off his French fries and moved onto his burger. When he looked up, the first thing Nico saw was a smile.

"I'm a fourth incubus, remember?" Jason whispered—which put into perspective of how loudly they were discussing Nico's feelings.

The other boy quickly surveyed the restaurant to see if anyone noticed. Luckily, no one cared about the college student regular who usually blended in with the crowd anyway.

"I mean—nothing with Leo happens below the belt. History says incubi usually impregnate women and Leo—is definitely not a woman." The way the blonde's demeanor twisted read, _Oh yeah, terrible combination. _"And I'm only a fourth incubus. Making out with him is enough to get him off. And at that stage, it's practically a delicacy for me."

"Ah." That made Nico feel a little better.

"_But_. For us to ever be involved emotionally is _completely_ out the door. Trust me. Neither of us is touching that with a ten foot pole." Jason's eyes flashed thoughtfully before he added, "His words, not mine. You and I have more in common emotionally than he and I do. Technically, if consummation and blood withdrawal were in that same equation as _long walks on the beach_ and _intellectual conversation_, you'd be the perfect package."

The confidence in Jason's words stuck out to Nico. He blinked while Jason rubbed the exhaustion out of his eyes once more and finished off his chicken nuggets. Against that paling skin, any idiot could obviously see him flushed. An ironic laugh left Nico's throat. "You don't even know if I like you."

Blue irises looked up from the food before them. A smirk curled over Jason's lips and in a higher voice—"_Says the guy who came out on a date with me._"

"I don't sound like that!"

"_Says the guy who_—hey!"

Nico plucked one of Jason's French fries and threw it at the taller guy. He grinned while Jason laughed so hard that a snort followed.

"You know—_aha_—" Jason clutched his nose where the fry hit him, and shook his head. "—I've been living with you for two weeks now. And all I know about you is that you have a sister and you go to school. What are you in school for?"

"Medical field." Once their chortles died out, Nico found himself more full of energy. He sat straight in his seat, watching as his date finished eating. His gaze wandered over his empty tray, and he fiddled with the straw to his drink. "I figure that I've seen so much death in my own family that I could help save lives to make up for them."

Across the table, Jason reached out to loop a hand around Nico's. "That sounds _great_, man."

"What about you?" Nico felt the cool touch leak through against his skin. Somehow, it was soothing. "Anything you wanna do?"

"Huh." Jason's entire demeanor faltered at that one. He took in a heavy breath—one that looked like it really hurt—and pushed the tray away from him. "When I was younger, I used to hate my parents. I wanted to be an astronaut, so I could literally be on a different planet than them."

Daddy issues were definitely something Nico could understand. "You have any alien friends?"

Jason blinked. "Aliens? Really?"

"What, they don't exist?"

"Probably on the opposite end of _exist._" Wrinkling his nose, Jason shook his head vehemently. Clearly, Nico was _super wrong_ for mentioning them.

Instinct had Nico's next quip on his tongue. However, it came to his attention how nauseous Jason looked now. Jason was so pale that he was graying like a corpse. His blue eyes were an eerie contrast—vivid as ever with a hint of laughter, but overall, he looked ready to puke. The Jason that Nico met for the first time actually looked _better_ than the one now.

"You're not getting any better," he pointed out. Jason was trying to ignore the problem, but at this point just looked pathetic.

"Yeah," the blond muttered. He pitifully tried to stand up before plopping back in his seat. "Told you packaged blood wasn't that good."

"And I told you we shouldn't come here." Nico ripped out his phone and unzipped his hoodie. Then stopped. He watched Jason, who was now burying his head beneath his hands. "How long can you hold out?"

"Duh-no," the blond slurred airily. "Package…blood in't usually somethin' I haff to deal with. Didn't think…i-i'd burn out…so…quickly."

"Then take mine."

"_Wha_—? No."

"Jason, it's not like I'm asking for a commitment." Nico rolled his eyes. "C'mon. The sooner we get this fixed, the sooner we can continue our date."

There wasn't an immediate reply. Jason peeked up from the table, still pouting like a wounded animal with eyelids covering a majority of his gaze. "You havin' a good one s'far?"

"Yeah," Nico assured. His lips curled into a smirk as he shook his head in good nature. "I might even let you come home with me tonight."

"Okay—" The blond pushed against the table to stand to his feet. Then fell. Again.

"You are _so_ weird." That being said, Nico stood up and threw his hoodie over Jason's head. "C'mon."

**-x-**

_Jesus Christ—_Jason's mouth was cold.

They bumped noses when Nico pulled away out of instinct. He clutched his face while Jason muttered _sorrysorrysorry_—before cold hands cradled his face. Looking up, Nico's heart skipped a beat. Those blue eyes were bad enough, but they were now staring at his lips with utmost fascination. Gold eyelashes were the only thing keeping Nico from intoxication. Before he could lose himself, Jason kissed him again.

The hoodie was snug over Jason—given he was at least twice Nico's size—but it framed Jason's biceps and tight stomach swimmingly. He gripped Nico by the hips firmly, palms squeezing Nico's hipbones while the shorter boy threw his arms around broad shoulders.

He licked behind Jason's teeth, sucking in the hot breath of chicken nuggets and—_ugh_, _ketchup_. (After this was over, they were _definitely_ going to discuss what should and shouldn't be eaten with McDonald's.) The pads of Nico's fingers ran over the cool surface of the back of Jason's neck. A sudden hitch in the blonde's breath made Nico warm, all over, with his cheeks permeating with heat.

"You know," Jason breathed as they parted for only a second, "I pegged you as the _flowers and chocolate_ kinda guy—" His hands slunk beneath the hem of Nico's shirt—who yelped when those cold palms were suddenly against his spine.

The yelp lasted half a pant, before Nico pulled Jason down into another kiss.

"—with a candlelit dinner, violins playing in the background—"

"Why would I want a violinist watch us make out?"

"—and rose petals sprinkled all over the bed," Jason continued. He gasped for air before placing his mouth over the crook of Nico's neck.

"I'm allergic to roses," Nico replied. His entire body was commandeered by sudden pleasure.

"Carnations then," Jason decided, which sounded more like _cawnshun's den_, and left Nico's skin soaked in slimy drool.

True. Taking all of Nico's past relationships into account—which according to Mitchell narrowed it down to maybe two guys—he was never one for PDA and never had the balls to make out with a boy in an alley between _McDonald's_ and _Dunkin' Donuts_. The kinkiest thing he'd ever done with a guy was wear socks during coitus. (He was pretty sure Travis Stoll actually stole those socks, too—Nico never saw them again.)

Yet here he was, hiding behind a dumpster with his legs practically spread, semi-hard and sucking face with a half-breed demon. People were still out and about, trying to get home or getting to a second job in New York. Even the rats and bugs were scurrying around for food. For someone like Nico, this was the least romantic place he'd ever been in his life.

Then again, Nico couldn't find anything wrong with this situation.

He was about to groan in disgust at the sudden spit on his neck—but all of that judgment went away the moment he felt Jason sucking at the skin. Nico held his breath before moaning. The question on mind—besides the _harder, more, please_—was why Jason was suddenly prolific before it reminded him, _duh, 1/4__th__ incubus, this is probably normal_.

There was no nibbling, but Nico found himself propped against Dunkin' Donuts with hands buried in the small of his back. His fingers scurried mid-daze to rip the hoodie off, but it screamed, _No! We're staying on! _

Jason pulled away, leaving a cool breeze to tickle the damp skin on Nico's neck.

"I must be the worst date ever," he whispered, blue eyes staring at Nico's mouth.

"Buy me flowers later," the shorter boy gasped. He raised his head and met Jason's lips. Nico could handle a date without flowers and chocolate if every guy he ever went out with could kiss as well as Jason did. _God_ did that heat feel good. Jason's crotch pressed against his own—and it clearly shared the same enthusiasm Nico did.

Then, Jason graciously dropped to his knees.

Blinking tenfold, Nico didn't register what Jason was doing until he felt the button of his jeans pop open. "What are you doing?"

"Dunno," Jason mused cheekily. Which was when Nico found his pants in a puddle at his ankles and had fingers fiddling with the end of his boxer-briefs. "Wow—the bat signal glows in the dark."

"They're special-ordered." Nico debated on _kicking_ him.

Before he had the chance to do so, Jason pulled down his boxers and _immediately _kissed Nico's balls. The light touch sent a tingle through Nico, and he felt it run straight back into his erection. With a shiver, his hands clawed at the brick wall behind him.

Jason gripped the base of Nico's erection, giving it an experimental tug that subdued another mewl from Nico's mouth. Not missing a beat, he straightened out Nico's cock, pumping in slow rhythm before mouthing one of the shorter boy's balls.

He covered it with his own mouth, _wet_ like Nico's shoulder, only _better. _

Knees buckling beneath him, Nico's hands found their way in Jason's hair. He pushed the hood away from blond hair, coaxing Jason's mouth back to his for a heavy kiss. His Adam's apple bobbed as he took in the sweet taste of Jason's tongue. Cool hands pinched his bare sides, before Jason returned to his current ask.

"_God_," Nico hissed when he felt himself throb.

Close to full length, Jason covered all of Nico's pride. He squeezed pale balls, humming in satisfaction. The gesture sent a jitter up to Nico's pounding heart while Jason licked the base of his cock. _Whoa. _

"Feel good?" Jason murmured.

"_So_ _good_," Nico agreed—voice strained.

Moments later, Jason slicked the precum leaking from Nico's slit down his cock, around the saliva. He flicked his wrist over the erection, then hiked Nico's shirt upward to plant a kiss on the shorter boy's bare stomach.

Nico fell back into the wall. He choked as a hand squeezed one of his ass cheeks—which quickly turned into a mewl. Jason's other hand gripped the base of Nico's cock, and the taller boy bobbed to take in the head. Buckling his hips, Nico nearly came.

Which of course, was what Jason was going for. The feverish heat from his touch made Nico flush, warm and glistening with energy beneath skin. Beads of sweat trickled down his forehead, around the contour of his cheeks, and fell. He wiped his face on his shirt, with a keen whimper falling from his lips.

_God_, it felt so _good_, with Jason's hand _around_ him, mouth _on_ him, fingers _parting _him and—

A slick finger pushed its way into his ass, past the ridge of muscle that usually kept it closed. It didn't hurt—but Nico definitely wasn't expecting it. How Jason managed to coat his fingers in saliva without Nico noticing, the latter hadn't a clue.

At the familiar gesture, his cock throbbed ten times harder. Jason sucked at Nico's erection with a loud _SLURP_, and another whimper knotted in the younger boy's throat. Another wet finger followed the one already in his ass. A tiny burn came from being stretched but it felt like a _knick_ compared to the mouth that was covering him.

The heat was almost too amazing to bear. By Jason's grip alone, he kept from falling over from weak knees and felt a tongue cover the head of his cock before Jason pulled off and sucked _further_ and _deeper. _

One of the two fingers found his prostate. Nico rocked forward with a deaf gasp, his hands once again finding Jason's head, and gave blond hair one harsh jerk.

"So good," he mumbled. "So good, so good—oh my _god_—"

Three fingers thrust against his prostate, while his cock found the end of Jason's throat. Again, Jason pulled back before going deeper, one hand up Nico's ass and the other squeezing his balls. White stars blinded Nico's sight while his legs gave way—

He barely had time to warn Jason. The blonde reeled back, apparently feeling the violent pulse of Nico's cock. Instead of pulling back altogether, he gripped the boy more tightly—and Nico had a mouth to catch his cum when he came with a heavy shudder.

Eyes squeezing shut when he felt himself shoot into Jason's mouth, it took him eons to open them again.

When he did, he was met with the sight of Jason, open-mouthed, with cream dripping down those pale lips. Blue eyes looked up with the moon in their irises. Then—Jason swallowed it all.

Nico watched Jason's Adam's apple bob as the blond licked his lips. He stared at the other boy in surprise—and, post-orgasm, didn't have time to say anything.

Half a second later, Jason pinned him to the wall and kissed him. The taste of his own spunk was in Nico's mouth, salty and sweet at the same time as Jason nibbled on his bottom lip. Kissing back in a daze, Nico barely registered his lip slitting again until the taste of blood entered his mouth.

Jason sucked on it dry, taking in every ounce of red syrup that he could, with hands still roaming Nico's body.

"Thanks," he murmured softly against Nico's cheek.

He nosed down the curvature of the younger boy's face before resting his mouth against Nico's neck once more. Teeth sunk into Nico's neck—to which he did whine again—and sliced his skin open. Then—all he felt was some more slurping.

The feeling was indescribable. Nico couldn't relate it to anything else in his life, but it was as if Jason was drinking everything from orgasm and post-climax to lull him into exhaustion.

After that, there was nothing else.

_Sleep_, Nico thought. He really needed _sleep. _

**-x-**

The way back home was a little fuzzy. Nico was pretty sure he walked maybe two steps of it before Jason opted to carry him like a child. That was fine—because Jason's hair was against his cheek and the musk of what they had done was all he smelled. His neck hurt like _hell_ afterwards, but the exhaustion post-bloodsucking seemed to work like a painkiller.

He asked dully if Jason needed some relief too, but one scrumptious chuckle later told Nico_ No, Jason was pretty much perfect. _

"I'm gonna pants you some day," Nico muttered soon after that. He channeled his inner Percy, babbling things that sounded ridiculous even to himself. His body was so sluggish that once he closed his eyes, Nico gave up trying to open them again.

After that, he felt like he slept for days.


	3. Chapter 3

**-x-**

**Chapter III**

**-x-**

"What's that welt on your neck?"

Nico's eyes shot open to the sight of his ceiling fan. His gaze flitted back and forth through the room. Early morning sunlight filtered through his window, filling out his senses and quickly waking him up. He glared at his fan as it shook and clattered.

On his floor, Percy lay with arms and legs stretched out over Nico's gray carpet. Light touched his face like a mask—and he was clearly trying to see through it.

Sitting up from his bed, Nico realized that—he was still wearing the same set of clothes from the day before. Blinking out the last of grogginess in his eyes, he checked his phone. 7:42AM—which was _too reasonable_ of an hour to be up.

He plopped back against his mattress and shut his eyes.

Then couldn't fall asleep again. Actually—unlike last night, he was now wide awake.

_God_, he was going to kill Jason for ruining his sleep schedule.

His phone was dying, so he put it on the charger before staggering to his feet. Nico stumbled back into bed. His legs felt like _jelly. _

And, Percy was still sprawled over his floor, taking a third of the space in Nico's tiny room. Sea green eyes flickered from the sunlight to Nico. Specifically—the "welt" that was on his neck. "You get laid last night?"

"That's none of your business," Nico grumbled back. His voice was dry. Looking down to his own disheveled body, Nico realized the collar of his shirt had been stretched to its limit. The hickey there was dark at first sight. He pulled at the front of his shirt to get a better look at it.

"You got any water?"

Nico took the bottle off his nightstand and gingerly gave it to the other boy. On further inspection, he realized there was dry blood caked above Percy's lip. "Did you run into a wall or something—?"

"Not too loud," Percy groaned. He clutched his head. "Hangover's a bitch. You ever try Connor's purple orgasm? He replaces the sprite with, like, one-hundred fifty percent vodka."

"I'm pretty sure he doesn't have access to that," Nico snorted.

"And I'm pretty sure his spunk was in it too."

"Yeah. That's why I don't drink his drinks."

"That's okay—I peed on his cat."

"I'm not even going to _try_ and follow your logic." Wrinkling his nose in disgust, Nico slowly lowered himself onto the ground. He pulled open his nightstand drawer and placed two aspirin beside his usual intruder.

"Thanks," Percy muttered. He glared again at sunlight, plopped both pills in his mouth, unscrewed the bottle of water—and splashed it all over his face.

"_Percy—"_

"You know, Annabeth is in a relationship with your friend."

The corner of Nico's lip twitched in disgust. He worked his way to his feet again and retrieved a towel. "My friend?"

"Yeah. Either the one with the pretty voice or the one with the snooty face." Percy didn't reach for the towel. Instead, those sea green eyes wandered back to Nico, and he stared at the other boy thoughtfully. "Not snooty in the bad way though. Like, they're both really pretty. And clearly take up all of her attention."

"Does it bother you?" Nico pressed the soles of his feet together and stared at the other boy warily. Usually mornings like this—where Percy would unceremoniously barge into his apartment after a good party at the Stoll Brothers' place—Nico quickly rolled the guy out of his room and slept until Percy was gone.

Right now, he was actually in a pretty good mood.

"Nah. You know I'm pretty open-minded."

"Sure." Nico twitched. Narrowing his gaze, he realized Percy wasn't acting like his usual loose-cannon self. Instead, he wore a solid look that meant he was actually contemplating something. "Do you still love her?"

Percy's demeanor twisted.

"Okay. Whatever. Uh—" Nico rolled his eyes and tapped his fingers at his ankle. "That's okay, you know. To still love someone."

And if Percy hadn't directed that down-to-earth look at him, then Nico probably wouldn't have felt the need to punch the other boy. His heart skipped a beat, but he held his ground and stared straight back at Percy.

"So is putting someone else's dick in your mouth fun?"

_Definitely_, Nico thought hazily. Then—his brain hit a wall. "I am _not_ talking about my sex life with you."

"Why not? You're glowing!"

Oh my—Nico rolled Percy over by mortified willpower alone and shouted, "_GOODBYE, PERCY!" _

"_GOD!" _

He was shoving Percy out the door when Jason arrived from the elevator.

"_HEY! _You're Walgreens guy." Percy grinned. They fistbumped.

"Hey—so are you."

"Good_bye_, Percy Jackson!" Nico rammed his finger into the down arrow forty times before pushing the brunet away for good. He heard Percy whimper, "_AH! THE BRIGHT LIGHT!" _before he was done with the idiot for the rest of the week. With the elevator doors closed, Nico whirled around to take a better look at Jason.

"Hi." Jason smiled.

"Hi," Nico sighed. He blinked in surprise before taking in the sight of the blond from head-to-toe. Jason's complexion was now bronze, with a flush of natural red in his cheeks. The bags usually under his eyes from fighting off dizziness were no longer there—and even his attire was different. Shorts, and a white shirt. Definitely different from black everything. The light from the hallway window caught onto Jason himself, wrapping around all of the grooves of his muscles. "You're in sunlight."

"Yeah. Weird, right?" Jason's demeanor teemed with excitement. "Should I be worried about you and Walgreens Guy?"

"You're in _sunlight. _Shouldn't we be worried about that?"

Jason's next response was a hardy smile. He examined Nico with a sparkle of guilt in his eyes before he reached over and warmly took Nico by the hand. Warm. Jason's hand was _warm. _"Do you have any idea how long you've been asleep?"

"Twelve hours? With a proper sleep schedule?" Nico's fingers curled around Jason's, fascinated with the fact that heat was fluttering against his own skin. That—and…the fact that their hands fit perfectly together.

"Three days."

"_What?_"

"C'mon."

Three days? _Three days? _

Nico let Jason tug him back into the apartment while he wrapped his mind around the fact that he could see more of Jason's skin than usual—plus the tan that made _Nico_ look like the undead in comparison. The heat was as soothing as the cold was, lulling his heart because it was Jason who was with him.

"Did you know McDonald's had a breakfast menu? They stop serving it at 10:30AM." Jason grinned fully before plopping on the couch. He patted the space beside him. "I've had _so many_ Egg McMuffins since Wednesday. They seriously need to make those bigger."

"You've…been out in sunlight?"

"I've been awake since our date. Like, wide awake." Jason clicked his fingers against his knees before pulling away from the couch. He crouched in front of the other boy, wide-eyed and smiling sheepishly. "I can't sleep. But the sun doesn't drain my energy either. It's like your blood gave me superpowers."

"I don't think my blood can turn you into Superman." The edge of Nico's lips twitched with mirth.

"But I feel light as a feather," the blond confessed.

Nico felt his cheeks redden. Narrowing his gaze, it came to his attention that Jason was staring at him with utter excitement and respect. Wow. "Well—" His voice chose the perfect time to crack. "—ahem. I am O-Negative."

"Huh. Leo's A-Positive." The smile over Jason's lips reached his ears before he bowed his head.

Silence.

"We never finished our date," Jason continued softly. He reached over, the warmth returning to Nico's skin as a tingling hand wrapped around his own fingers. "We should do that."

"I don't think seven in the morning is the best time to go stargazing." Nico snorted. The edge of his lips curled into a real smile. In that instance, he forgot how hard it was to wrap his mind around the idea that _three days_ had passed. Jason was beaming like a child—which was just a little more distracting.

The mirth over Jason's face transformed into a tiny grin. He dug into the pocket of his twill pants and pulled out a—"Sorry it's crumpled. Long journey from the flower shop to here, you know."

"Beautiful," Nico mused. He stared at the daffodil in amusement. It was missing three petals and was shaped like a Z. It was the ugliest thing Nico'd ever seen—and yet he felt his face burning from fluster. His heart ached as he examined it, and he chewed the inside of his mouth.

Jason was really too sweet for his own good.

It was still a confusing line. Guys like Jason were usually what Nico admired from a distance. He didn't get bullied—but if he wasn't careful, he was easily manipulated. Guys like Travis Stoll were the ones Nico was willing to make out with in a closet and never speak of again, while guys who _acted_ like Jason were the ones that _killed_ him. Nico didn't fall for people often, but it was the first time where he wasn't sure what he wanted.

But he was _pretty sure_ that he was wanting more than Jason was wanting. Jason was also undeniably kind and oblivious. There was a little flirting, sure—but Nico'd misread signals a thousand times.

"You're not one who shares," Jason said—snapping the teen out of his thoughts. "Are you?"

Usually someone calling him out on his feelings made Nico lock himself further inside his head. With a shrug, he pulled his hands away from Jason's grasp and curled them around his own elbows. "I just…want to make sure both our intentions are clear."

"Intentions," Jason repeated. His eyebrows furrowed. "You still think I'm in love with Leo?"

"No—I mean, I hope you aren't." Nico fiddled with the flower before setting it gingerly on his lap.

"Is…that why you don't like the Walgreens Guy?" Jason's lips curled into a tiny frown. He inched closer, so that the tufts of his blond hair could be seen from the corner of Nico's eye. "It is, isn't it?"

"I don't like it when people read me," Nico snapped.

"I told you _my_ biggest secret." There wasn't an ounce of spite or manipulation in Jason's tone.

It was weird. At the age of nineteen, Nico felt sixteen again, with Will reciting bad poetry at his side and making him laugh, even when Nico knew he didn't want to. A crescent falling over Nico's mouth, he snickered softly and shoved the other boy. "_You_ didn't. Thalia did!"

"I told you first. You just didn't believe me!"

"I also said you were _raised by wolves_ and had an _army_." Nico rolled his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. He wanted to be annoyed—but laughing with Jason made him feel as light as air. Nico didn't know how Jason could _do _that—make him laugh even when his heart refused to leave its cage. "You didn't deny that, either."

"Well—My nanny did have two dogs named Romulus and Remus."

"I am _so_ done with you!" Nico snorted before he was in a fit of giggles. His chortles were met with Jason's own while he pinched his aching ribs.

When his own laughter faded, he realized Jason had stopped laughing long before him. Instead Jason scrutinized him with those bright blue eyes, with the same analytical expression that he wore when with Reyna, Piper, and Leo.

Speaking of them, Nico had no clue where they were.

"So you and Percy," Jason started—changing the subject to something Nico wanted to talk about even less.

It obviously showed on his face, because Jason suddenly shook his head. Nico couldn't understand how someone managed to look like a commandeering leader one moment, shriveled into an awkward gentleman the next, and still maintain the humor of a five-year-old.

Jason's lips pressed together, sealing the subject for the time being. Instead, he took in a heavy breath and crossed his legs. "I mean, I'm not going to _pry_—but. I'd rather not think the worst of things."

Ugh. Breathing in hard, Nico felt part of his pride chip away when he exhaled.

"_But_, I'd rather leave it alone if I made you, my friend, uncomfortable. It's really up to you." Jason's lips pressed together thoughtfully, head tilted a fraction to the right, before he added, "And by friend I don't mean just friend. If that's what you mean by intentions."

The next look in those blue eyes nearly made Nico's heart stop. He wanted to smack that stupid face—_really. _Jason's words held truth, and Nico had no reason not to believe him in the past few weeks since they first met.

"He…uh." Nico glared at the ground and fiddled with his left sleeve. If things went like they usually did, then Nico would've been chickening out and telling Mitchell all about it the next time they met. Except, Mitchell was now busy going scarf-shopping 24/7 with Leo Valdez, Ordinary Human Extraordinaire (Valdez's words, not his), and Jason was apparently comfortable with Nico being such an introvert.

If Nico really _wanted_ Jason, then…he needed to open up fairly the way that Will advised him to.

That was Step Number 4 in Mitchell's guide to relationships. He dubbed Nico's case "Rehabili-Nico," like the doofus he was.

"Percy was the first person that I met when I moved to New York," he finally admitted. Fiddling with his shirt, Nico found it hard to breathe. It _shouldn't_ have been a big deal and it _shouldn't_ have bothered him so much. But it did. "And the way he talked to me, I thought that he liked me the way that I…liked him. That I lo…" Nico kept his lips glued firmly together before the answer would slither out. "That I fell for him."

Nico didn't bother to look up. He didn't want to see what Jason's reaction was to Nico's humiliating himself because of some guy that _wasn't even out of his life. _

"And so when he and Annabeth broke up for like, the hundredth time, I told him. That. That thing." Running a hand through his hair, he shut his eyes tightly and wiped the sweat off his wrist. Sigh. "He didn't take it well at first. And then he avoided me for a while." _Two months, three weeks, six days. _It'd hurt a _lot. _"And when we _did _talk_, _he put the blame on me."

What had Percy said?

_I know you don't want to see me right now—_even though all Nico wanted was to wait outside Percy's door until he'd get home—_but one of us has to be the bigger person so we can be friends again. _Even though Nico spent the first three days calling over and _over_ to apologize for something that he shouldn't need to apologize for, and Percy didn't pick up once.

"And so I swallowed my pride and said that was fine," Nico finished lamely. He bit his bottom lip and looked up to Jason's line of sight. "We don't talk as often as we did. He says he's fine, but I don't think he is. And I'm not so desperate to be in the same room as him, thank god."

Jason's sky blue orbs turned icy. He glared with the vivacity of his half-demon self and kept his hands at his legs. "So why does he drop by all the time?"

"He waters the plants," Nico said simply.

"Nico, why would you—"

"Hazel and Frank don't know that he turned me down. And they're not going to." Nico _tsk_ed under his breath and tapped his fingers against his knee. "Look, Percy's an absolute _jerk_ in my book, but he treats my sister well. For that alone, I don't care what he does."

Fortunately, Jason took those words to heart. The last thing Nico wanted to deal with was getting that incident thrown back in his face. "And you think that I would do that too."

"I don't…_trust_ a lot." Nico wrinkled his nose. The admission itself made him feel more humiliated. He didn't like putting himself out there. Especially after laying his feelings down with a guy he was in _love_ with that was willing to avoid him for nearly three months.

"So why did you _trust_ me?" There Jason was, with the direct questions again.

Nico shrugged. He…hated this atmosphere. "I guess you haven't disappointed me yet."

A smile curled over Jason's lips—and he was obviously satisfied with that answer. It warmed Nico's heart and flustered him all the same.

"_That_ or vampire pheromones." Ugh. Nico twitched. He wasn't going to dwell on something that shouldn't bother him anymore.

Again, Jason apparently took Nico's terrible and ill-timed humor happily. Grinning from ear-to-ear, he sat straighter on the floor and looked at Nico fully.

Enough to make Nico turn red from head-to-toe. Ergh. Shaking his head demurely, he stood to his feet and checked his phone. If three days passed, then today was Saturday. Which meant Frank would be competing soon. "I should shower. I must stink."

"Pretty much," Jason supplied. "Wait."

"Yeah?"

Jason swiftly stood up with the other boy, hands stretched out. His demeanor was thoughtful, lips curled into a frown. Carefully, he reached out to touch Nico—and stopped.

In a mocking tone, Nico stretched, "Do you want me to _turn?_"

"I was serious about the whole second date thing. And more, if the second one works out." Jason's fingers curled until he tucked them in the pockets of his pants. Even standing half a foot away, with only space between them, Nico could feel the heat as it radiated off of Jason's body.

An ebony eyebrow darted in the air, waiting for Jason to continue.

"And the _whole_ package thing," the former continued. He observed Nico thoughtfully, looking like a lost child. "I _like_ you, Nico. And I don't—really meet a lot of people who can understand that. Understand me."

Red flushed over Nico's cheeks. He rolled his eyes, but it only came halfheartedly, with the other part of him pounding at his chest. "So even vampire-incubi need eHarmony."

"Don't need it," Jason responded instantly. He ducked his head to the ground and gazed at Nico shyly, one foot digging into the ground. "Do I?"

A grin fluttered over Nico's lips. "I guess I _do_ owe you for an amazing night."

"No payment needed. I'd appreciate coupons though."

"Shut _up_!" Nico half-shouted, half-sniggered. He shoved Jason, then reeled him back. The touch of Jason's warmth spread at his palms, with fantastic euphoria that made his hands tingle.

When he looked at Jason, he saw himself in the reflection of those orbs. He looked happy, and a little relieved. Part of him wondered if Jason saw in Nico's eyes what Nico saw right now. The firm, pink smile against apricot skin, with a livid glow in those undead eyes. Nico saw himself smile too, at the very center of those irises.

Even if it was a timid smile. "I'm not all that great."

"Me neither. I still owe you chocolate."

"Yeah," Nico murmured. "You're pretty terrible."

"Says the guy who smells like he hasn't showered in three days."

"That is a _terrible_ comeback."

"Well—"

And with that, Nico kissed him. Someone might as well, so they'd both shut up.

**-x-**

"Where's Piper?" Nico asked as he busied himself with chemistry homework. His apartment had been quiet for the past few hours. It wasn't that she was _loud—_but when Nico looked up, he realized that Reyna and she were usually gushing about Annabeth when Annabeth was busy with her internship.

Jason hummed from his place in the kitchen, where he was fixing up his food. Nico wasn't sure what it was, but it definitely smelled _sweet. _"Business with her dad. He's apparently in Manhattan right now shooting a movie."

Nico frowned. "He's shooting a movie."

"Yeah. He's Tristan McLean."

"You mean the guy that butchered Set in the Kane Chronicles four years in a row?" Nico's face scrunched up. "Piper has a movie star dad, _and_ he's _that_ actor?"

"I take it you're familiar with his work?" Jason mused wittily. "You have a poster of him when he played King of Sparta, don't you?"

"Yeah. And she burned it to the ground. He's a terrible actor." Nico rolled his eyes and highlighted a string of sentences row-by-row. "What about Leo?"

"Going out on a date with Mitchell, I think."

"What—he finally worked up the courage?"

"They have some issues to work out," Jason said cryptically. The answer alone made Nico frown. He would have to meet up with Mitchell soon so that they could talk. "Anyway—you probably shouldn't let Tristan find out you said that. Sirens are known to pick at men's throats and devour their esophagus. Esopha…gi?"

Twitching, Nico cocked his head and looked over to Jason, who was now putting a cake pan in the oven. "I thought Sirens had the head of women."

"Of human women, yeah." Jason shut the oven behind him and moved to the fridge to get out a can of coconut milk.

Nico's gaze narrowed, almost irate. "I thought you didn't need those anymore."

"I like the taste of them. So sue me." With a shrug, Jason plopped into the seat across from his…boyfriend. "Tristan just _looks_ like a man. Sirens are pretty much genderfluid and androgynous. They can be whatever they want to be. Piper's charmspeak makes her look like she does now."

"What do you mean by that?" Half of Nico's mind debated Jason's words, while the other half orbited around the fact that as of two months ago, he'd been dating someone who wasn't ready to pack their bags and leave. November had finally come, three days earlier. In two more months, he would be 20. And…maybe he'd have someone to share his birthday with.

"What do you mean 'what do you mean'?" Shrugging, Jason stretched out his limbs, revealing the taut muscle beneath his thin shirt as obnoxiously as possible. "Piper talks, and she makes you think she's human when she's not. Still pretty with feathers though. Great voice. Leo says she looks like a sexy peacock."

As he looked back to Nico, he was met with a furrowed brow and a look of confusion. Sure, Nico had taken the explanation of Jason and Reyna being vampires, but that'd been proven true when Jason sunk fangs into his neck. He wasn't actually supposed to _believ_e that Piper looked like half a peacock, was he?

"You know that other creatures live in this world," Jason chimed in, voice tingling in Nico's mind. "Some just hide it better than others. You'd be surprised what some of the people in this _apartment_ are."

"I don't think my expansion of the norm wants to leave this apartment," Nico snorted. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he decided to change the subject. "Where's Reyna?"

"Probably with Annabeth. I think she's trying to get Annabeth to love her as a vampire." Humming beneath his breath, Jason looked nervous. He sat only an arm's distance away, but Nico's heart was leaping out from his chest.

Yeah—_that_ wanted to leap out of his chest and latch onto Jason. Nico'd come to that discovery a long time ago. Unfortunately, the words to go with it were still hiding at the bottom of his throat. He'd said it to two other people in his life—and while one accepted, both eventually wore a hole in his chest.

Swallowing his nerves, Nico jested, "Step 10: How to Treat a Vampire."

"I hope you mean _how to treat a vampire well_," Jason mused right back.

"You're only a fourth. I only need to treat you a _fourth_ well." Hiding a grin, Nico gave up taking notes. He doodled on the lined paper next to his book, and shaded in a lopsided heart. "I'm sure Annabeth already figured it out. She's a lot smarter than I am."

"Well, she didn't freak out when Piper told her she was a siren." Jason drummed his fingers against the table, paying no heed to the fact that Nico was drawing a heart tree. Instead, when Nico looked up, he found himself being the source for a happy smile.

Nico sucked in the inside of his mouth, his heart still cutting gently at his chest so that it could break free. Like _hell_ he was going to let it do that. Wait—no, he wanted the opposite. Again, he pinched the bridge of his nose, inhaling and exhaling hard since his own mouth wouldn't listen to him.

"Where are Hazel and Frank?" Jason asked, pretending that he didn't see a thing.

"At the race track a few hours away," Nico responded idly. He checked his phone. "They shouldn't be back until around ten tonight."

"So everyone's out for the night."

"Yeah, everyone's—" Nico paused. He locked gazes with his boyfriend, expression slackening from its usual frown. A glint of mischief flickered in his eyes and his mouth curled into a grin. "I guess they are."

Two seconds was all it took. Nico supposed that on a school night, he should have chided Jason for distracting him from studying, but they rarely got the apartment to themselves. Frank and Hazel usually left them alone, sure, but that was only accounting for two of the other five people who co-inhabited this place.

He had no clue how Frank and Hazel managed to sneak around just fine. In good humor on one tipsy night, Nico'd joked that he'd castrate Frank if the guy ever defiled his sister. Hazel quickly smacked him for making such a statement and Frank fainted.

(It probably helped that Frank _did_ have an apartment with Percy and Dakota not too far up the street. Jason and the others technically lived with them, so sneaking around outside of this apartment wasn't possible unless Nico wanted to develop a fetish for exhibitionism.)

_Exhibitionism_ not needed, Nico pulled them to his bedroom where a majority of their activities began. Jason giggled behind him. The moment they stopped, Jason stretched to adorn Nico's ear with a kiss.

Before ever starting, Jason wound hands over Nico's waist from behind and kept his mouth at Nico's ear.

"Would it be okay," he murmured softly, "if I drew blood?"

_Hm? _Nico blinked. The words tickled his ear with its usual sweet fervor, but he hadn't heard that request since—actually, never. The first and only time that Jason needed it was on their first date, when Nico insisted upon it.

Now that he thought about it, Jason felt a few degrees cooler. They kept their apartment cold since Nico hated falling asleep in heat, so he'd written off Jason's lack of heat to the A/C. Then—his thoughts wandered to the last time Jason had _drawn_ blood, even if it wasn't his own. Jason hadn't mentioned a thing.

He snapped out of his ministrations when Jason withdrew a breath, apparently nervous. That was the thing about Jason that Nico learned: Jason was very direct and hoped for direct answers back. He was polite, but too much of a people pleaser. "We…don't have to if you don't want to—"

"You hesitated," Nico replied pointblank.

"I did _not._"

"Did too." He whirled around so that Jason's hands were roaming the small of his back. Stretching his arms, he pressed the other's hands close against him, so he was practically being hoisted onto his boyfriend as they stood. "You really think I'd say no?"

"You always have the option to."

Rolling his eyes at the _stupidity_ of his own boyfriend, Nico shoved Jason into bed. The taller boy squeaked, while Nico straddled himself over Jason's jeans. He lowered himself, bobbing for Jason's lips.

Hands fastened themselves over Nico's hips, while Jason readjusted himself into a more comfortable position. Planting himself firmly on Jason's lap, Nico went back to sucking Jason's tepid lips. The heat was faint—closer to a glass of lukewarm water, than anything else—but Nico tried best to ignore it. To get _into_ it.

When Jason etched further into bed so that his spine would press against the wall, Nico lifted his legs and felt Jason's hands squeeze his ass. Pulling away with a quiet mewl, Nico inched closer, so that Jason could _feel_ his half-hard erection against that tight stomach.

"You want it now," Nico murmured between kisses, "or do you want it afterwards?"

Jason wheezed from the lack of air, his hands suddenly fondling Nico through his t-shirt. The baggy sweats that Nico wore were already shirking off his hips from the extra movements. He was pretty sure they were Jason's—he'd blindly put them on after waking up from a nap and tightened the drawstrings without thinking.

Thumbs rubbed circles into his hipbones, again pulling Nico out of his thoughts. The look Jason gave wasn't shy—but was reserved. He reached up and coaxed Nico's face close, then planted a hot kiss over Nico's lips. The heat of it was like stepping into the desert sun, soaked in the warm fire only the sky could conjure. It always soothed Nico's heart, even when his mind went into an endless loop of thoughts and fears.

Once that was done, Jason shifted his legs as a reminder that Nico was still on top of him. With a low croon, Jason parted from their link. His lips met the point where jaw ended and ear started, and he slid his mouth down to the crook of Nico's neck.

With a quiet shudder, Nico bucked against the other boy and dug his hands into Jason's shoulder blades. Teeth grazed the skin, Nico's thoughts wandered back to Juno and the rest of Jason's family. He still hadn't met the woman, despite all the terrible things Reyna, Leo, and Piper had to say about her. It was hard to even paint a picture in his head.

"I wanna listen to you first," Jason muttered. The sound vibrated against Nico's ear, and he felt something stiff already digging into his leg.

_God._ Jason _really was_ a hopeless romantic at heart. Swiveling his hips, Nico moved so that his back was to the mattress, and Jason quickly followed on top of him. They touched and rubbed together, erratic breathing and sharp gasps interrupting their kisses.

Nico quickly ripped off Jason's henley while Jason yanked Nico's loose pants down to his ankles with a swift jerk. They met again by mouth alone, kissing hard and breathing into each other as the sweat accumulated down Nico's face and dampened his neck.

His cheeks were red while Jason examined him with dark eyes. They had a lot of time to spare—Hazel and Frank would be gone for _hours_, and that probably went for the rest of their little family.

Flushed and dazed, he watched as Jason went at him again, this time mouthing one of his nipples beneath his shirt. Nico propped up his lower body by his ankles, grinding against Jason's legs to let him know _just what_ he was waiting for.

A huff left Jason's lips as he breathed over Nico's wet neck. It was so _hot_ and felt so _good_ and Nico was _moaning_ again with Jason against him.

Again, that nose nudged him at the crook of his neck, and Nico felt Jason breathe in the musk of pre-copulation. Jason was still wearing his jeans and Nico was still clothed from the belt down, and he could _feel_ more than _hear_ Jason growl with feral intent.

Nico's eyes squeezed shut as a bead of sweat fell from above his eyelashes.

"Just," he chided lightly, "don't take too much this time. I have a test tomorrow."

He meant it in good humor. But Jason pulled away, with his darkened eyes look back to Nico's restless own with surprise. Then uncertainty.

"I-I'm sorry," Jason sputtered.

_What? _

"Why'd you stop?" Nico felt a cold breeze against his neck. He choked on a breath, but refused to move from beneath his boyfriend.

He knew from curt explanations that Jason wasn't all that _innocent_ when it came to sex. He wished someone told him that all that experience was also wrapped in a _Gee Whiz!_ _Gentlemanly Boy Scout _Package.

The guilty look was suddenly twisted in favor of Jason's, _I'm a Superhero_ demeanor, and the blond pulled away. A ragged sigh left his lips before he settled against the wall. "I guess I took more blood than I meant to last time."

"I was just _joking_, Jason." It wasn't hard for Nico to relax. His skin was still tingling with the adrenaline of making out, but his mind shut all of that out. _Instead_, Nico sat against the wall too. He'd had these moments—where his mind gnawed at him more powerfully than his body. And when he looked at Jason's demeanor again, he realized maybe he shouldn't have been joking in the first place. His bad humor was bad for a reason. "Maybe I shouldn't have. I'm…really sorry."

"No! No, I mean—" Jason laughed softly under his breath. "I've—never gotten my blood drawn. Not in the way you or Leo did, so I don't know my own…you know. And I. Don't want to hurt you."

"You were surviving on coconut milk for three months before you and I met each other." Nico rolled his eyes. He moved his palm against the bed until he found Jason's hand, and curled his fingers into it. Already, he could feel a little bit of warmth returning to Jason's skin. "And you didn't look as healthy as you do now when I found you. I gave you my consent and I was the one who _offered_ it to you."

"I mean, you're _right_, but—"

"Jason, you can take as much blood from me as you want. I—" The words were stuck at his throat. Nico hit the wall behind him with his knuckles, rapping them in a nervous fashion. "I…like that you can come to me for it."

Jason seemed to really debate that. If things were going to go like they did two months ago behind Dunkin' Donuts, then they hadn't even gotten to the fun part of the night yet and Jason was already freaking out.

Nico put _mentioning bloodsucking _on his list of _alternate contraceptives_ for future reference and tried to examine this. There was definitely some irony there—Nico'd been so nervous about this even working at the very beginning, and now Jason was worried to take it any further. He was trying to summon the courage to make the next jump in their relationship and Jason was dealing with it in a completely different way.

One of Jason's talents was the ability to make his emotions sit still, like they were stuck in Jell-O. Nico didn't know _how_ Jason did it, but Jason did. Questions were always asked, Nico's opinion was always accounted for—

"You're afraid of hurting me," Nico repeated Jason's words. "Of, like, _really_ hurting me."

Physically and emotionally. Not just because of Nico's fragile words months ago—but some weird power complex he must have inherited from his parents. A little demented, yes—and maybe a small blow to his ego.

"Do you think I'd really be in a relationship with you if I thought that would happen?" Nico scrunched his face.

Jason snorted—and Nico wondered if it was a habit Jason had adopted from him after two months together. The usual mirth was still glittering in those eyes, even if Jason sounded absolutely worried. "I knocked you out for three whole _days_, Nico. What makes you think the same thing won't happen?"

"Because you've been better since we started dating." Nico rolled his eyes. Realizing what he just said, he felt his cheeks flush, and shrugged with fluster. "I mean—as a whole. But, yeah. With…me. Right?"

He wasn't lying, either. Jason had been _tremendously _better since first time that they saw each other. He was only a fourth, so suckling so much blood might have even been an overdose for him. The first full week after their first date, Jason hadn't gotten an ounce of sleep because he was too energetic for his own good.

Then, of course, Jason didn't get or need as much sleep Nico did after a night of staying up. He'd done some weird things while he was awake—and really, _really_ liked McDonald's. Nico wondered if he was even enough—after all, Juno apparently had a blood bank set up for Jason.

Wait.

"When's the last time you saw Juno? You haven't mentioned her since our first date." Nico's eyebrows furrowed with concern.

To his surprise, Jason stiffened at the thought. "Uh…this morning?"

"_What?_" Nico threw his fists into the air in disbelief. "You sucked blood this morning?!"

"No, I—didn't!" Jason's demeanor twisted.

"You're _hesitating_ again!" Nico's face turned red in irritation. He sucked in his breath of rage when he realized Jason was cringing and forced himself to calm down. Okay—maybe Jason just hadn't gotten around to telling him. "When before that?"

Blue eyes darted everywhere but to Nico's glassy ones. "Two days ago."

"And you didn't _tell me_?" Nico guffawed. He scrambled to the other side of the bed to get a better look of Jason's face, and took in that guilty look in all its glory.

"You didn't ask! And it was dangerous!"

"We've been dating for two months! Don't you think that if you're going to have a relationship with someone, you'd tell them everything?!" Rolling out of bed, Nico's bare feet hit the ground as hit paced back and forth to relieve himself of anger.

"Because when it comes to my parents, my _bio-mom_ half is what they're interested in. We're both human, and I don't want to involve you in things that could get you hurt." Jason got up to halt Nico in his pacing, but the boy had only sped past him from wall-to-wall.

"You're half human, a fourth incubus, and a fourth vampire! And I love all of you!" Nico hissed. "If you love me back, then I don't think it's fair that I'm only allowed part of your life! _Especially_ if you're intent on also taking my blood when you need it!"

He didn't realize the own ferocity of his own words until Jason's eyes widened in shock. The blond looked back to Nico, mouth ajar from surprise, and Nico could _see_ the thoughts get lost in his head. Before, "You love me?"

Nico's heart skipped a beat. Right. He was pissed, he loved Jason, and he could run his mouth if he was _that angry_, and he didn't even know if Jason felt the same way. Swallowing his heart as it tried to escape from the impending embarrassment, he nodded. His trembling hands curled into fists as he waited for Jason to say something.

Before he knew it, Jason shot through the air, pining against Nico with his hands wriggling around Nico's waist. He sucked at Nico's lips with cold heat, with electricity spinning between the both of them. "I—" Kiss. "—love—" Kiss. "—you—" Kiss. "—too."

Nico shivered, kissing back just as fervently. He ducked his head as Jason pulled the t-shirt over him, and tossed it somewhere random. They kissed again, skin finally pressing warmly against skin, while Jason's words pulled Nico's libido in overdrive.

Except—he was still mad.

And when he was mad, his mind could be more stubborn than his body.

(Nico supposed he should've worked on emotional extremes a little more, but this was a bad time to mull it over.)

"I'm still," Nico let out a breathless moan as Jason's mouth latched onto his other nipple and those other hands groped his ass enthusiastically. "I'm still _mad_, you know—"

That being said, he was also fumbling to unhook the buttons on Jason's jeans. The blond made a sound at Nico's declaration, before asking in exasperation, "Do we really have to talk about this _now?_"

"I want to meet your mother," Nico countered. His hands knotted into blond hair, and he stumbled backwards until being coaxed forward, back onto the bed and returning to Jason's lap while the other boy chucked off his jeans.

"M'mom's dead," Jason breathed as he began to suck at the pulse of Nico's loud heart.

Nico responded with rocking his hips, hard erection rubbing against the bulge that was right under him. He hissed as Jason pinched his sides, rolled his eyes as Jason quickly muttered _sorry_, and shoved Jason until Jason's back was against the mattress. Then, Nico crossed his arms and glared.

A whine left Jason's lips. "Do we have to talk about it _now? _"

"You don't think I'm going to have sex with you if I'm mad, do you?" Nico asked flatly.

Jason debated the answer, apparently considering it for the first time through that thickhead. He released his grip on Nico's hipbone, even if a sliver of disappointment met Nico, and sat like an obedient child.

Well—as close as two guys could get when Nico was still straddling Jason's lap and hard dicks were poking out of their underwear.

Instead of just sitting still—and Nico pretended he didn't feel Jason's erection rubbing his ass—Jason crossed his arms to mimic the shorter boy's pose, and shook his head. "You're not seeing Juno."

"What business do you have with her?" Nico spat—then breathed. He reeled back his impatience and debated moving away from Jason's lap. He'd probably sound more serious if he wasn't saddling his half-monster boyfriend's lap. If he wanted to have this conversation, then his temper needed to go away. Like, now.

"_Nothing_, Nico." Jason sighed, his eyes shooting for the ceiling in frustration. "Can't we just—not think about it right now?"

"She makes up half of your existence," Nico pressed on.

"She's not even my real mother," Jason replied, not missing a beat. "In fact, if she _was_, I wouldn't be asking permission to suck your blood right now. I wouldn't need it, like, at all."

Ugh. Nico peeled one leg off of Jason before he was sitting on the bed by himself, ankles crossed. His heart burned with slow, anxious hate in his chest as he tugged at his bedsheets. "I love you, Jason. I love _all_ of you, but—you—if you can't share with me, then we've hit a wall."

Jason's gaze still looked elsewhere instead of Nico's face. He looked nervous, twitching unevenly, and fiddled with his own side of the bed.

Nico glared, waiting for an answer. "Will you tell me what you've been doing with your parents?"

"No."

"Do you want to break up?" Nico's throat tightened, the words not even wanting to come out.

"No!" Jason responded immediately.

Good. Nico couldn't help the sigh of relief that fell from his mouth. "You want me to not mention Juno. Ever."

It was kind of irritating how Jason immediately perked and bobbed his head up and down in agreement.

"You know I won't do that," Nico continued, "right?"

Another sound left Jason's lips before he propped his head with his palm against his lap. "So what do we do?"

"I do my homework." Nico swallowed his next breath, hands curling around his elbows. "And I wait for you to change your mind."

He honestly wasn't sure what to expect. Some guys got so mad that they shouted how much of a _tease_ and a waste Nico was, while others simply watched him leave. He'd always said _good riddance_, or ignored it altogether because he didn't have time to fuck around (figuratively) if he couldn't feel connected.

"I'm not going to," Jason interjected. Then again—he wasn't like most other guys. If their earlier talk about the man who butchered Set, the God of Chaos meant anything, then Jason technically only owned half a human dick.

Rolling his eyes, Nico reached for the first shirt he could find.

"That's my shirt."

Nico arched an eyebrow as he turned around. Jason wasn't overly possessive—so this looked like a poor attempt at conversation, if anything else. "Do you need it?"

When they made eye contact, Nico realized that Jason was staring at the Henley as it bunched up over his shoulders and arms. He felt a sliver of guilt—if Jason really _needed _his blood, then Nico was willing. But if Jason was seeing his mother in secret, and getting it from somewhere else on _top_ of that, he wasn't sure why he would bother.

With another exasperated sigh, Jason scrambled off the bed and collected his jeans. "Why is this so important to you?"

"Why is this—are you kidding me?" Nico threw his hands in the air in frustration, heat burning in his cheeks from rage. "_I love you! _What other reason could there be?!"

"If you love me, then you'll refrain from asking!"

"I want to love all of you!" Nico shouted back with just as much vivacity. He growled before slamming the door behind him, and retrieving his homework.

"Where are you going?" Jason asked only seconds later. He left the room, dressed in only his boxers while Nico paced back and forth from room to kitchen to get dressed and retrieve his backpack.

"_I don't care_," Nico spat back.

"That doesn't even make sense!"

"_I DON'T CARE!" _Nico slammed the front door behind him and stormed off.

**-x-**

Later that night, when Nico came home, he had a splitting headache. It took two hours of trying to convince himself to study and five more of actual studying before he managed to get through the first chapter of the book. Most places were closed at this time of night, especially any with an extra cup of caffeine for him. He'd made the thirty-minute trip to college and spent his time cooling down in the student union.

It was probably better that way—Nico wasn't the type to face his demons when he was pissed off, even if he was trying to get it through Jason's thick head how much he cared. He had the tendency to talk bigger the madder that he was. Hazel and Frank understood he never meant anything by his threats. He loved them both dearly and a few words said in spite between them meant nothing for all of the emotional strength they'd given him in the past two years.

Jason was different though.

Because Jason had his own reactions and twenty-one years on Nico in a different life, and as understanding as he was, Jason should know that he deserved better than a scrawny college kid yelling at him.

Suffice to say, Nico was really surprised when he opened the door of his room and found Jason sitting cross-legged on his rug playing with Nico's old Mythomagic cards. He wore Nico's baggy sweatpants, which looked nothing but tight and stiff over Jason's hot thighs, and kept his bare back flexed in front of the floor.

"Hey," the blond muttered nonchalantly.

"Hey." Nico's heart skipped a beat before he made his way across the room. Across from Jason. Swallowing his hesitation, Nico sat cross-legged in front of his boyfriend—if he still had the privilege to call Jason that—and watched Jason set up the game like solitaire. Snort. "Who's winning?"

There wasn't an immediate answer. Jason sat back against the floor and propped his hands behind him. The stiff ridges of his abdomen stuck out to Nico, lacking its usual luster from the sun.

They were two feet away from each other, and Nico could feel the burning coldness radiate off of him.

"Stalemate," Jason said finally. A sigh left his lips, and he scrutinized Nico.

Nico's heart skipped a beat in his chest, with the irritation growing in his head. It bounced around with his reckless emotions, tangling with the words he'd shouted earlier. Jason didn't look at him with a smile, but instead with bitter scrutiny.

This was it, he thought.

Jason was going to break up with him and Nico would have to wait another ten years to find a guy that understood him. At this point in his exhaustion, Nico wasn't sure if he should let his rage accept the fact and say _good riddance_ or let his brain choke on his heart again and protest.

Nervously tapping his hand against his anklebone, Nico reached out to the deck of cards and chewed on his tongue. "You know what erases a stalemate?"

"Tartarus." A grim smile curled against Jason's lips and he nodded stiffly. He didn't reach for the deck, but placed the card on top of his own pile. "It destroys everything."

"Gaea can counter it. Her special ability vetoes any of Tartarus's attacks."

"But I'm talking about the _field_, not the primordial being." Sniggering under his breath, Jason sat straighter against the floor and revealed his facedown card. "It erases every god, titan, or monster on each side of the field and gives me 500 life points for every monster in my graveyard."

"But—if I play Pandora's Box, then the field is sucked in," Nico protested. His voice rose as he managed to find the card in his deck, and he flung it onto their circle. "All the evil is then sealed into her vase and your field no longer exists. And then I can summon Hades. His special ability gives him 500 Points of attack power for every monster in your graveyard."

"_Fuck_," Jason hissed. He grinned soon after, eyebrows high in the air. "Nice."

"Are we?" Nico couldn't keep the words from falling out of his mouth even if he tried. His gaze kept to the cards in front of him and he refused to look up.

His opponent sucked in a deep breath before he bowed his head before him. "I'm sorry I yelled at you."

"It's okay." Nico's words swelled at his throat, mind so flustered that Jason was turning the other cheek for him. "I-I'm sorry too."

"I really _do _love you, Nico. I do." Looking up, it was obvious that Jason was having the same problem. Of the two months that Nico knew his boyfriend, Jason had been calm, sweet, and a bit of an oddball. He read people well enough to know that some of it was a façade for the serious demeanor beneath it, which was what Nico was seeing now.

Yeah.

It wasn't that hard to believe that Jason Grace was the noble idiot that all of his friends said he was. Nico's heart still tingled at the words, burning with the electrifying heat of Jason's sincerity.

He jumped out of his thoughts when he heard Jason reach over on all-fours, to crawl up to him.

"I love you," Jason repeated sweetly, eyes never leaving Nico's, A dorky smile curled against his lips. "Nico di Angelo, Victory of the Angels."

"That's _not_ what my name means!" A snort left Nico's lips before he grabbed a pillow from his bed and threw it.

"_HEY!" _Jason laughed alongside him, before pinning Nico to the ground. He yanked the pillow from Nico's grasp and shoved it against his boyfriend's chest.

Nico stared back at him, grin working its way across his lips with zeal. As his gaze hooked onto those blue eyes, Nico felt his heart tremor. The grin over his lips faded with nervousness and anxiety, and he wondered how long it would take until he was actually calm.

Jason looked back at him, scrutinizing Nico with calm demure.

"I'm…I-I love you too," Nico started, and his gaze fell to his hands, which were currently knotted under Jason's pale forearms. The words still knotted in his throat, with Nico lacking _years_ of practice of saying him. He could feel himself trembling at that fact, the air suddenly so thin in the room that he was ready to pass out from his own apprehension.

"Nico, I—" A ragged breath forced its way from Jason's throat and he stretched his limbs to press lips to Nico's—before pausing. Jason's lowered gaze was now wide and unsettled, while an eyebrow arched high in the sky. "Did you eat garlic bread?"

Jason took one huge whiff before groaning and nearly lunging to the other side of the room, nose behind his fingers.

"Uh…" For lack of an answer, Nico could only cringe. He knew Jason wasn't joking about that _garlic allergy_, but he couldn't place this reaction as _melodramatic_ or _completely serious. _"I. Was. Kind of mad. _Ahem._"

"Is '_was'_ the key word here?" Jason answered back nasally. His eyebrows were so high that Nico found himself realizing after two months that Jason had a widow's peak.

"I'm _Italian_! I like garlic bread!"

"You're only half!" The blond whined, nose still cradled in his palms. "Only half of you has to like it!"

"Well stop being a baby!" Nico comically rolled his eyes and staggered to his feet in search for lifesavers in his desk. _God_, he was putting that on the list of things that made Jason freak out like a three-year-old. _Of course_, Jason was willing to compromise as much as he was willing to stand his ground, but all of _Tartarus_ forbid that Nico have bad breath alter Jason's state of mind for two sec—

Nico froze mid-ripping the wrapper.

His gaze sauntered back to a manic Jason, who was tapping at the ground with pent up energy and eying Nico back with excitement.

In an instant, Nico went from taking the lifesaver out to fiddling with it between his fingers. Turning around, Nico stood with his bare feet facing Jason and leaned his back against his desk. He chewed on the inside of his mouth. "Here's the deal."

Blue eyes looked up, obviously confused.

"I can put this mint in my mouth and you and I can have mind blowing-slash-semi-make up sex for the both of us being idiots." Nico's cheeks blazed with heat and he watched Jason sit in an eager perch. "And in the morning, you make arrangements so I can have dinner with your family."

Jason's stance slackened and he slouched. His eyebrows knitted together, frown all too apparent. "You think making love with you would change my mind on your safety and whether or not I'll let you meet my mother?"

Nico's cheeks emblazoned with red. It sounded more romantic and more _pathetic_ coming out of Jason's mouth.

"I don't," Jason breathed in, lungs whining, "_want_ you to, Nico. She's dangerous. And you're _important_ to me."

"You were trying to get in my pants earlier to make me forget about her!" Nico pointed out with laughter in his tone. Jason didn't share his terrible enthusiasm, though, because this was now descending to the same mood of Jason being concerned about his blood loss, and Jason needing to lock himself out and be the crazy sacrificial hero that Piper, Reyna, and Leo all rolled their eyes at.

"I was trying to show you how much I love you!" Jason threw his hands in the air, but didn't attempt to get up. His nose crinkled in disgust, and faintly Nico wondered if his garlic breath was traveling. "I don't—god, I don't _understand!_ How I can get it through your thick head how crazy I am about you?!"

"Well I'm crazy about _you_!" Nico seethed. He threw his fists in the air, chagrin reignited with Jason's ongoing refusal. "Why don't you want me to meet her? I _know_ why she gets under your skin, but that's why I want to _help _you! You think taking my blood is the _only_ way I want to help you?!"

"I never said you had to!"

"I told you that my blood is yours whenever you need it!"

"_NICO_!" Even Jason cringed at the volume of his own voice. He shriveled, hiding his head between his knees before he could attempt to stand to his feet. The effort looked pitiful, with Jason stumbling from his knees to the bottom of his feet before he could actually stand firm. "I don't wanna talk about this. You…you _can't_ meet her and bribing me with sex just…just hurts. Okay? It hurts."

Nico's throat dried instantly. His demeanor slackened, eyes widening at the confession, and he felt his heart drop. He still wanted to argue—but none of the words his brain had pulled to the forefront of his mind wanted to make it to his mouth.

"I'm—I'm sorry," he croaked. Nico could feel warm tears prick his irises, trying best to not let it show. He was so _bad_ at this. At _compromising. _He and Will cut it off at the very brim of all their problems, before either of them could strike the root that hurt their relationship.

_Yes_, he should have seen this argument coming. Especially if Jason was willing to take him back despite earlier stupidity. He hadn't meant for to escalate to the point that Jason looked like he could hardly breathe on the other side of the bedroom.

Placing one step in front of him, Nico couldn't believe that the rest of his body wouldn't move along with him.

He swallowed the bitter taste of tears before they could dribble from his eyes and plucked the lifesaver off the ground. Nico could put it in his mouth, but he doubted it would make him feel less of a jerk.

Moments later, without a word uttered between them, he took slow strides to stand beside Jason.

Those distressed eyes looked up, mottled with confusion and the obvious hurt that Nico caused. Nico's hand twitched before he gripped Jason's cold fingers between his own palms and placed the mint at the center of them.

"You can have my blood," Nico murmured, no hesitation there. His lips curled into a grimace and he nodded. "Really. If you need it. I don't mind."

The frown over Jason's lips, so cruel and untrusting. With an inaudible sigh, he took his own steps forward and closed the distance between them. He padded Nico's jaw with the tips of his fingers before nudging the unwrapped lifesaver into Nico's mouth.

Nico took it without protest and suckled on the cool burn on his tongue.

The lukewarm touch of Jason's mouth felt almost foreign. He was close to the line where hot would turn cold, dully coating Nico's mouth with his own fluid and sucking the life out of the breath mint. The unspoken tension was screaming, seen from the stiff way Jason clutched Nico's face and how in return Nico gripped Jason's shoulders.

Jason parted for only seconds before pushing his mouth against Nico once more. He gripped Nico tightly with his thumbs crossing Nico's collarbone beneath his old t-shirt. Nico arched his neck, hoping to envelop the rest of him with that mouth. His ears flushed with heat, while Jason sighed.

Before it could turn into a frenzy that made them forget both their worries, Jason pulled back. An icy rush replaced the tepid heat. Nico looked up in mild curiosity, neediness fogging his mind from anything else but the way Jason looked with the line of saliva glistening over those lips.

A flash of Jason's own uncertainty sobered him up. "May I still…?"

"_Yes_, you big idiot," Nico grumbled. The corner of his lip curled into the tiniest smirk, but it wasn't enough to soothe either of them.

Then, Nico felt pain.

Teeth sunk into his neck in the same spot as it'd done the first time, like a dagger penetrating his skin inch-by-inch.

_God_, it hurt so _much. _

Nico convulsed—a silent cry of agony choking at the back of his throat. Jason's fangs felt like they were digging into the _bone_, carving against his body with all the hate and throbbing anger from this stupid, _stupid_ day.

Why did it _hurt_ so much?

"Stop," Nico whimpered. "Stop, stop, _stopstop_—"

It felt like hours. _Ages. _

But when Jason ripped away from him and backed into the end of the room, Nico realized that not even a minute had passed.

"I'm sorry," Jason whispered. "I'm sorry, I'm—_so_ sorry, Nico, _god_—"

Trembling, Nico couldn't control his hands as they shook against the neck wound. He stumbled to his feet, but his legs collapsed beneath him, bones disintegrating from shock.

Jason squeezed his eyes shut, sobbing, before he fled out of the room.

Unable to stand to his own feet, Nico only watched. He closed his eyes and flinched when the front door slammed shut.

For the rest of the night, when Nico regained the feeling in his neck and body, he pretended he could stand up without trouble and readied himself for bed.

He closed his eyes against his pillow, restless.


	4. Chapter 4

**-x-**

**Chapter IV**

**-x-**

"Jason said you two had an argument," Mitchell said nonchalantly. He petted the thick mop of hair resting across the booth soothingly. Nico didn't need to look up to know that Mitchell waspitying him.

Next to him; Hazel sat, hand smoothly running up and down Nico's back in slow motions. "Jason's actually talking to you?"

"He talks to Leo." Mitchell took a long sip of his caramel frappuccino and sat idly at the back of his seat. "Which gets back to me. If it helps, he's a wreck."

"That doesn't help at all," Nico grumbled back. Hazel sighed against him, murmuring sweet words as she usually did to calm him down. She'd done this after Will had broken up with him all those years ago—but this time it didn't help. His heart ached with four times the pain and Nico couldn't ignore it.

With that in mind, Nico let out the most pathetic sound in the world and slumped against his seat. It'd been a week since Jason bolted out the door. Piper, Reyna, and Leo all popped up regardless, coming in and out of the apartment to gather things or make a fort out of their living room.

There was no way for him to make light of the situation. His _boyfriend_ had run out of the apartment after leaving a nasty bruise on Nico's neck, which still looked as fresh as the day that he received it, aching with all of Nico's own pain and insecurities since then.

"I'm glad you're making use of that scarf that I got you," Mitchell ironically said, which was strategically interwoven around Nico's neck and dangling over his big aviator's jacket. He smiled quietly and tapped one of his many rings against the table. "That green _really _looks good with your eyes."

The explanation swelled in Nico's mouth, but he was too exhausted to admit it. He was lucky that after so many years of friendship, Scarf Day Every Day had come in handy. Nico tried every source of makeup and hickey remedy that he could get his hands on, but nothing would cover or scrub the wound off. Fortunately, neither Hazel nor Frank suspected a thing. The good news about approaching Thanksgiving was a fact that Nico could wear more layers than he already did.

"S'really comfortable," Nico muttered when he realized he hadn't responded.

"Let's go look for matching muffler hats once our last class is over." Mitchell grinned. "You'd look great in one."

"I could use a new knit cap," Hazel supplied.

"Oh! There's this cute boutique that just opened up at the mall. We should check it out, I think they have a hat that matches your eyes!"

Nico sighed in defeat and switched to rest the other cheek against the table. He cringed as strain shot across the god-awful bruise and moaned wretchedly.

Instead of babbling like excited children, Hazel and Mitchell stared at him with both pity and concern. His sister sighed with him, once again rubbing circles in Nico's back. "You've got it bad, don't you, bro?"

"What did you guys argue about?" Mitchell asked curiously.

Swallowing hard, Nico stared out the window into sunlight, hesitant. "I…asked if I could meet his mother and he got scared."

"Really?" Both his best friend and sister perked at this new sliver of information. Hazel's eyes widened tenfold, and she scooted away from Nico enough to face him fully. "Nico, that's—that's a _huge_ commitment."

"I _know_," Nico groaned. His heart ached when he realized he couldn't get into it any more than that. He wanted to shout his frustrations to the world because that wasn't even what he was _upset_ about.

His boyfriend wouldn't _talk_ to him after one incident and Jason was blowing it into major proportions, and Jason was too fuzzy in the head to even get ahold of.

Reyna sat down with him once and assured Nico that Jason would come back. If Jason was loyal, then he wasn't going to abandon them over this. Not even the stupidest person could stay away from their pack that long.

(At that declaration, she reaffirmed that Nico was dealing with a _vampire_ and that Thalia's wolfiness was a Girls Only Membership with a great dental plan. Piper looking like a peacock was still hard to wrap his mind around.)

Feeling his heart in his throat like when he was with Jason, Nico squeezed is eyes shut and felt his body trembling.

Hazel frowned. "Nico, you're—"

"I told him that I love him." Swallowing bitterly to keep his feelings from slipping out of his mouth, Nico brushed his cheek against his sleeve and faced the table once more. "And he says that he loves me back, but after asking about his mother and all of this other stuff he just—he didn't want to—we haven't seen each other in a week. I'm _mad_ at him because he doesn't want to share _that_ part of his life with me, but I am a little frustrated that he hasn't come back yet."

Nico wasn't even sure what he was referring to anymore. _That_ part was the _vampire_ part, but Juno and Jupiter were apparently _human_, so in an odd way, Jason didn't realize that yes, Nico had no choice but to love all of him.

Again, that frown only deepened across Hazel's face. She turned her body fully to focus on Nico, and shook her head. "Maybe…it's a little early to ask that."

The comment only made Nico feel worse.

"I mean," Hazel continued before Nico could have a momentary lapse of further frustration and irritation, "it took me four months before Frank would let me meet his grandmother. He was afraid that I would look down on him for not being fluent in Chinese and 'walking away from his culture.' But his grandma is great. She loves me."

"I hear she hits hard," Nico said.

"She does kickboxing," Hazel explained.

"Ah."

"I dunno. Nico and Jason's relationship has a few more severities than yours does with Frank." Mitchell smiled dearly, his blue eyes locking easily with Nico's.

"What do you know?" Nico frowned.

"Whatever Leo tells me," his friend said back, which was just as cryptic as the first proposal. Mitchell shrugged without a second thought, his hand strumming against his cup. He'd never been a good liar, which was obvious now. Mitchell's gesture might have been _smooth_, but that was only if he was in a room full of other bachelors that couldn't lie to save their own ass.

This was _definitely_ not the right time to deal with his best friend discovering that he was making out with a vampire. It was an even _worse_ time for his sister to find out that they've been living with demons for the past two and a half months.

Apparently, Hazel wasn't committed enough to notice. Instead, she rolled her eyes and leaned back in her seat. "Is this some sort of inside joke you two are never gonna tell me?"

"Yes," Nico said before Mitchell could even conjure a nervous answer.

He didn't miss Mitchell's sigh of relief.

At that moment, Leo Valdez trotted into the student union, hopping like a merry elf before Christmas day. He grinned as he walked over to their booth, covered head-to-toe in soot and grime with just a neon-colored hat and matching scarf that survived the apparent explosion. "Mitchell! The love of my life and _mi_ _corazoncito_!"

Nico's mouth hung low in disbelief while Hazel stared at the walking disaster with nothing to say. Mitchell, on the other hand, smiled before gagging when Leo kissed him on the cheek.

"Move," Leo said.

"What happened to you?" Hazel asked, her eyebrows perking as high as her hair.

"You should move too," Leo supplied when he realized Hazel was sitting there. He wiggled his eyebrows at her and tipped his hat like a good cowboy. Which brought to attention his soot-covered leather boots and suspenders.

"Hey," Nico snapped. He secured an arm over Hazel's shoulders and tugged her protectively toward him. "That's rude."

"You can stay." Wiggling his eyebrows once again, Leo tugged at Mitchell's hand wrung his boyfriend out of the booth with freakish strength. After that, he looked over to Hazel, who grimaced, and wriggled his hands in a _please move now _gesture.

Mitchell, evidently not taking this action as an insult, chuckled and offered an arm out to Hazel. "Is this about Jason?"

"Jason. _Jason, Jason, Jason_," Leo rambled in a nasally tone. He flipped his hands again in different directions, and Nico quickly wondered how Jason and Mitchell had the patience for this. "What are we, the Brady Bunch? Can't I have two seconds alone with _mi amigo _here, Nico D? I need the D."

"You say that again and I'm smacking you," Nico growled. He glared irately, but Leo waved his hand off like the threat wasn't a big deal.

"Aw, c'mon, Angel Boy. Would I come all the way here just to annoy you?"

"Yes," was the unison answer.

"Yeah, I would." A devilish grin spread across Leo's lips, evil and demented like coal. He crawled into the booth, sitting across from Nico, and crossed his hands diligently on the table. "But we've got business to talk about. Think about me as the prelude to the in-laws."

Nico blinked, unsure if he heard that clearly or if Leo said something about breaking the law. At this point, probably both. He looked over to Hazel and Mitchell, who were now shrugging back before they waltzed toward the door.

"So this is the skinny," Leo declared before Nico could think of curses.

"Skinny," Nico repeated, flat. "What are you, from the 1940s?"

"_Hah. No._" Leo slapped the table like Nico told the funniest joke, and propped his tiny feet above him. The elfish grin disappeared, naughty glimmer gone from his eyes as his lips fell into a straight line. Nico blinked—wondering how the spastic guy not even seconds ago was now scanning him like radar. Eventually, his eyes fell to Nico's neck, and he gave only a tiny gesture. "Does it hurt?"

Immediately Nico's hand flew to the wound. He cringed at the sudden jolt of pain. "Why did it?"

"Lack of preparation," Leo replied simply. His voice had a splash of humor, but everything else was completely serious. "You see—the foreplay is what makes it really, really, _really_ hot. Then you get so distracted from that that you barely notice the twin daggers stabbing you."

Nico cringed again at the word _'stab.' _

"Plus—he's gotta be in into too. Part of the nuance in dating a guy as hot as Jay is that you make him all hot and bothered too." Leo took his scarf off and readjusted it over his neck. "Not to say that you don't—I mean, you two make enough oogly eyes at each other that Cupid would be jealous."

"Really?" Nico's gaze narrowed. "_Cupid?"_

Leo waved his hand around dismissively, and Nico wasn't sure if he imagined or if Leo actually _said_, _Semantics. _

"You're telling me that you managed to get Jason hot and _horny _better than I can?" The envy was already bubbling in Nico's stomach, venomous before he pressed a hand to his face. _Why_ was he even talking about this?

"No. I mean, nothing really happened below the belt. Trust me—as great as jerkoff sessions would have been, Jason didn't really have to do much to get a rise out of me." Leo considered his options before admitting, "Believe it or not, up until last week I was a virgin. A very, very, very horny virgin."

"Gee, and I wonder what was stopping people." Nico barely wanted to ask Mitchell all the details of this. He barely wanted to be part of this conversation right now. First off, Leo Valdez was calling him a bad lay. Second, Jason probably thought he was a bad lay. Third—he had better things to do than sulk around and imagine his best friend and best friend's apparent boyfriend in their birthday suits.

"_Hey_," Leo said sharply, but went nowhere with it. Instead, he settled against his seat like an excited puppy and looked at Nico like he was the dog treat to earn. "I'm going to assume that you guys have a good butt-pinching life. He probably would have been hot and bothered, but his mind was literally elsewhere."

"I don't know what to do with that."

"Dude." Leo's gaze narrowed and he rapt his fingers against the table once more. "You asked about his mother. That's honestly forbidden territory for him. Like, _mega_ forbidden."

A rebuttal deflated in Nico's throat. His gaze fell to his hands and he squeezed his bitten neck.

"So," Leo continued, "you wanna know why?"

_What? _"You just said—"

"Yeah, but I like you." Just as flippantly, Leo rolled his eyes and a smirk curled against his lips. It faded as fast as it appeared, and under all of that energy, Leo apparently softened. "I mean it. Jay doesn't just fall for anyone. I mean—he does, he…_yearns_ a lot, but you're the first person since Piper that's actually yearned back."

Okay. Settling carefully in his seat, Nico made a face that let Leo know that he was all ears.

"Jason…" The thought trailed off before it even started. Leo's eyes hardened, and Nico realized this definitely wasn't all jokes and jabs at him. Suddenly Leo looked ten years older, demeanor stern despite his blackened face and nervousness. "He told you about his mother, right? Crazy rich old bat sonographer who has no problem giving him access to her patients' blood bank?"

"I…guess…so—?"

"Jason _has—" _Leo began tallying his fingers. "—nine other siblings, Thalia included. Do you wanna guess how many of them his stepmom and dad have together?"

"Uh…?" Nico's gaze narrowed as he tried to follow Leo's chaotic train of thought.

"Two. Ares and Vulcan. Strange fellows, they are." Leo nodded like a child and shrugged. "Mister Planet Spock looks like my dad, by the by. They work together at a workshop. _Anyway_. Nine siblings, only two that are Juno's. A real bitch, ain't it?"

Nico's mouth parted, his mind at as much loss as why Leo still looked like blackened chicken. "How long have they been married?"

"Hmm. Fifty years, give-or-take."

"What the—_fifty years?" _

"Yeah, they're like ancient. Super ancient. Jupiter is an old fart in his seventies. Believe it or not, Juno's even older than him. And—even without the menopause stopping her, very, very, very infertile. Ironic, huh?" Leo stole the Frappuccino sitting across from him and took a hard sip. "I think he's got some insemination fetish. Seriously, I bet he's never used birth control."

"And she just—what—" Nico sputtered, eyebrows darting high in the air with confusion. "They're still together?"

"Yeah. No remarriages or anything, they're just—together." Leo wiggled his eyebrows, evidently finding it as disbelieving as Nico did. "That's the thing. I'm pretty sure all she has down there now is an old dusty cave—"

"—that is _disgusting_—"

"—and Jupiter fucks up by fucking, and Juno just deals with it. She hates most of the kids. Most. Thalia included." After another hard sip, Leo pushed the drink aside and sat back against the chair. "But other than Vulcan and Ares, Jason was the one she got to name. He's the one she considers a son, even if she managed to have two kids with Jupiter over her own."

At that point, Nico's eyebrows furrowed together and he couldn't help his frown. "And?"

"Juno is powerful." Leo sighed, his hands curling together. He took in a breath, meeting eyes with Nico for the first time since the confession began. His lips curled into a grimace and he winced, clearly thinking of nothing but bad thoughts of this woman. One who Nico still had a hard time imagining as a wrinkly old thing. "Really powerful. More so than the dad. I…I don't know how, man. Jason doesn't know either. But…one of his half-siblings, Heracles—we call him Herk, by the way—Juno hates him.

"A lot. Jupiter named Herk Heracles because it's apparently a name in his crazy wife's family. She…don't get me wrong, he's a good looking guy. Played on the football team in high school and was gonna go on into the NFL. But she made his family go away.

"Like, by the age of thirty-four, Herk had six kids and a wife and it's been twelve years and he hasn't seen them again. He swears he doesn't remember anything from the night before, only that he saw his wife once and then he woke up and she was gone. He's…he's a broken man now.

"And it didn't make the news. That's the thing—Juno made Herk's family disappear, but no one reported it. It was like Herk never had a family to begin with. Like someone paid everyone off in the city of New York so no one got suspicious that this big shot NFL player's family was gone."

"You…really expect me to believe all of this?" Nico couldn't even sound like he didn't believe Leo. His voice was soft, cracking slightly at the accusation. Of the two and a half months since Nico met Leo, he never knew the guy to _ever_ sound this morbid.

Leo suddenly maneuvered his hands again, fiddling with the straw of the empty Frappuccino. He smiled grimly, eyes falling to his ashy knuckles. "The world can be a scary place, man. Even on the flip side with handsome mortals like us."

Silence followed.

"I," Leo continued quietly, "watched my mother burn to the ground at her own workshop. By myself. And I have to tell myself every day that it wasn't my fault. But it was."

"I'm sorry," Nico croaked.

"Yeah." Then, Leo waved his hand again, dismissive once more as he shook his head. "Anyway, that was one extreme. The other extreme is Jason. Juno likes Jason. Loves him. Even more than her own two kids. She's willing to do anything for him."

"I know. That's why he's freaking out about the fact that she uses a blood bank—"

"No. The blood bank is new." Leo's lips pressed into a straight line and he watched Nico's reaction carefully. He bit the inside of his cheek and folded his arms together. Brown eyes looked to dark ones, completely hard. "But that's only one example of what Junie here would do for her stepson. You think that's bad enough, but it gets worse. He's…a fourth incubus and a fourth vampire. You fit the pieces together."

Nico blinked, his lips curling into a suspicious frown. "What do you—?"

"And his crazy stepmom is willing to do just about anything for him." Leo drew a breath, never breaking eye contact. "Anything."

It dawned on Nico _immediately_. He opened his mouth, jaw slackening in too much shock to stay up, but never had the chance to continue.

The double door opened once again, and Nico's whirling mind was directed to Piper, who was dragging his pathetic boyfriend toward their booth. He suddenly had a headache, demeanor twisting in so much shock that Nico wasn't sure what he looked like at the moment.

_Jason_, and that _stepmother_.

"Hey Superman!" The heavy tone that Leo adopted was now replaced with his usual quirkiness. He slid out the booth, dirty feet planted to the ground, and grinned at his best friend before lunging for a hug.

"_Oof_—dude, what were you _in?" _

"Oh, a tar pit. No big deal." Wiggling his eyebrows in good nature, Leo slapped a hand over Jason's back and made extra sure soot rubbed off. "You know, those things still have the capability to explode."

"So I've gathered." Jason chuckled softly before manually pulling his best friend away from him.

Leo made one noise of protest before turning his attentions over to the third of their trio. "_Pipes_. C'mon, _Beauty Queen?" _

"Oh—no, hell no." Piper's voice was stern, but she was giggling through all of it before she leaped a foot away, hands guarding her body. "You _know_ that doesn't wash out of my feathers easily!"

"Big deal! You'll just molt!" Leo refused all of her protests and latched onto her.

"Get your dirty head off my boobs!"

"It's not on your boobs!"

Nico patiently looked over to Jason, waiting for the blond of that trio to fall into chortles, but it never happened. He nearly jumped when his gaze was met with Jason's own, followed by a soft smile that looked hard to maintain.

His own heart shot for his throat, ready to spill out through his lips and through his eyes as he realized he missed Jason even more than he thought he did. Nico couldn't even force a smile over his lips. Never could. That was the bad thing about him—he could never fake his emotions.

With Leo's implication in mind, it was pushing its way through his thoughts like a needle piercing his brain. Nico swallowed hard to keep his emotions in check—and failed immediately.

"We're…gonna go look for a school sweatshirt. And a hose." Piper yanked Leo by the back of his dirty jump suit and pulled him toward a store.

Once they left, Jason tentatively took it as his cue to sit down. Nico's gaze fell up and down his timid boyfriend, unintentionally searching for any signs of Leo's explanation, and only felt his heart tighten in his chest.

A week without each other made Jason look horrifying. It still didn't beat the first impression Nico ever had of him, but it came pretty close. The bags under Jason's eyes were an ugly black, while his wide frame looked bony and narrow. Jason's flesh was a pasty gray, looking no better under this lighting. He looked like he could pass out at any second, but it didn't stop his gaze over Nico's bruise.

"It still hurts." It was better to get it out now. Every stubborn bone and defense mechanism that usually whirled in Nico's mind in a spinning loop halted into an awkward stop. He couldn't summon the anger and frustration that he held days ago, even though he knew he should be mad at Jason for abandoning him.

Jason drew a breath, cringing as he did so, and squeezed his temples gingerly. "I am _so—"_

"It hurt more that I couldn't see you for a week. That I scared you off." Nico's eyes fell closed and his hands fell onto his lap. His heart painfully begged him to say _I love you_, but those words needed to stay still until Nico could think clearly. "It hurt me more that I hurt you."

"Nico." Jason grimaced. "I—"

"_No. _Do you know how much I hate it when people put me first and hurt themselves?" Tapping the table with his hand, Nico pulled back against the seat and made sure to keep eye contact with him. He was trembling because he had no idea what he was supposed to _do_, but he wanted everything to be all right. "I want us to be okay. Okay?"

The edge of Jason's lips curled into a tiny line. Again, his gaze remained at Nico's shoulder.

"I'm _okay_, Jason." Slowly, Nico reached over and curled a hand over Jason's own. His thumbs ran smoothly over his boyfriend's knuckles, and he nervously gave the hand a squeeze. "I still love you."

"I love you too," Jason murmured quietly. He squeezed back, hands as cold as ice and lips curling into a hard smile.

"I'm not going to ask about your mom again."

Blue eyes perked at the confession. Nico bit his tongue to keep from babbling what he learned.

"I…I want to meet her. Eventually. But I want you to want me to meet her." If his emotions weren't already hanging in frustration, they were now. He tried to smooth out his thoughts and make logical sense of them, but they ended up swelling into an ugly knot. "I did it because I want to protect you. If we love each other like…like I want us to, and you want us to, then I want you to be there with every decision I make. And I hope it's the same for you."

Finally, to Nico's utter surprise, the corner of Jason's lips curled into a tiny smile. He settled against the booth, palm still blanketing Nico's own in sweet comfort.

Jason drew a heavy breath before letting it go completely, the sigh sounding like a jab at his own pride. Then, he gave Nico's hand an experimental squeeze. "Piper says that…if I love you, then I need to show you all of me. Including my family."

Nico blinked. His lips curled into a grimace and he opened his mouth to assure Jason that it was okay, but didn't get the chance.

"I called Juno. We're having dinner with her on Friday." Jason's lips curled thoughtfully, his eyebrows knitting until they became one. "You're…the first person in a long time that I've felt this way for. I want that feeling to last. But I guess I can't keep that to myself now. Not if we're together. And I—I _want_ us to be together for a long time."

The rush of heat glowed in Nico's cheeks. His heart felt like it was soaring. He opened his mouth to speak, but the gesture was too complicated for him to vocalize.

"You proposing?" Nico murmured wryly. His gaze fell to their interlaced hands, unable to endure the sight of Jason's smile.

There wasn't an immediate reply. Not one dedicated to Nico's little joke. Instead, Jason bowed his head submissively and drew another broken breath. "When you meet my family, I—I can't promise that—"

"I love you," Nico repeated. The assurance eased out of his throat without much thought. Way, _way_ easier than it'd ever been with Will, even when his first boyfriend was badgering him for the answers. Nico didn't understand why he was always comparing this relationship with the first one—but he knew that it only made him feel ten times better. Jason understood every part of him, even when Nico didn't understand it all himself. He didn't need to verbalize every thought, but the message always got through, even through the frustration and painstaking truths.

Lazily rotating his wrist, Nico moved from his side of the booth and slowly eased his way to his boyfriend's end. Jason watched him wordlessly before their lips met. Hands still knotted together, Nico decided they were going to stay that way for as long as Jason wanted, and hopefully that would be a long, _long_ time.

One kiss immediately became two as Nico's anxiety diminished completely with Jason's lips pressed against his own. With overwhelming relief, Nico was flying. This was _good_ for them, and they were together again. He thought he heard Leo _whoop_, but it wasn't important right now.

"You still need my blood?" Nico asked. Cold fingers lightly prickled his spine over his sweatshirt and he shuddered. He knew the answer was _yes_, and that his response would be _yes_, but lazy kisses were just his favorite thing.

Jason smiled in amusement before shaking his head. "We're in a public place."

"You blew me behind a Dunkin' Donuts," Nico pointed out.

This time, Jason's demeanor faltered. He sighed before shrugging reluctantly. His face was still gray, flesh as cold as ice, and breath even colder. If possible, the question made him look even more so. "Let's work our way up to that."

Nico's first instinct was to open his mouth and reassure, once again, that he was fine. But from all the time Jason and he spent together, that was probably the worst way to go about things. The past _week_ was an example of why they should take it slow.

When he didn't answer immediately, Jason supplied another explanation. "I just…don't want to hurt you again."

The reason made sense enough, even if all Nico wanted was to make to him. Jason's face twisted with palpable guilt, eyebrows furrowed together with worry.

Jason didn't show it a lot, but it was obvious that he was as hardheaded as Nico was. The decision was final, and there was no way arguing about it, even if it was for Jason's sake.

And the compromise was already a struggle for Jason to go through with.

(Nico couldn't consider it a victory for him. Not even a small one.)

But he did want to make Jason feel comfortable with him. The pessimistic voice in the back of Nico's head wondered if Jason ever was. Before his insecurities could get the better of him (and the nagging voice telling him that Jason was _terrified_ and Nico was being _selfish_), he buried his face at Jason's nape. Another sigh left Jason's lips, but this one was filled with relief and satisfaction.

"Small steps," Nico agreed. He reached up and pressed a small kiss to Jason's jawline.

**-x-**

"You know they're making an anime for Mythomagic," Jason said quietly. His lips pressed softly to the shell of Nico's ear and he chuckled when his boyfriend shuddered.

Then, Nico groaned when he realized what Jason just said. "How are they going to manage that?"

"They're going to adapt it to include holograms for a gaming system, of course."

Opening one unwilling eye, Nico briefly muttered curses at the setting sun outside and read the clock. 6:02PM. He twisted his body, only to realize that somewhere in his two-hour long nap, Jason had reappeared in his bedroom and now had an arm snaked beneath his waist.

How Jason managed that without him waking in between, Nico had no clue. His classes ended early today, but with finals creeping up on them in the next two weeks or so, all of his professors were cramming second-to-last exams into the curriculum before the semester was over. He was still experiencing burn-out from _yesterday. _

With today over, that just left two more exams on Monday and Tuesday to deal with. They had the semi-dinner party with Juno tonight, and after that Nico would rush home and study the last possible bits so he could collapse for most of dead week.

It was easier said than done. Most of Nico's worries at the beginning of this semester were directed toward his grades, but now he couldn't let his mind wander to this big dinner party without the uneasiness hitting him full force.

Jason talked to him like nothing stressful happened, and they always ended up knotted together and spooning by the end of the night. It was hard to tell if Jason had made peace with everything, or if he was faking it so Nico wouldn't worry. But Nico _did_, and his mind wouldn't shut up about it.

"They might be basing it off of Heracles. Like, him and his twelve labors. Then modern day Greek mythology."

"I don't think that's easily transposed from Yu-Gi-Oh." Nico wrinkled his nose and turned so that he was buried against Jason's side. He yawned, head against Jason's shoulder, and settled. "Don't tell me it's from the same company."

"I like Yu-Gi-Oh."

Snort. "You would."

"You don't?"

"I never said that."

Chuckle. "We have to get ready soon."

Ugh. At this time of night, the bus to Long Island would be two hours long, if not longer. Once they got there, they would have to take another one to Brookville into the rich suburbs. Nico was never one for public transportation. Too much touching.

"Juno called a limo," Jason said, reading Nico's mind.

"Just how rich is your family?" Nico's face scrunched as he realized the word _limo_ was involved. Without complaint, he sat up and stretched is limbs from two hours of disuse. Rotating his arm, he realized that Jason hadn't commented back.

Instead, Jason was staring at the ceiling, obviously hoping for it to swallow him up before this dinner party could get started.

Nico swallowed hard, the guilt and the worry from the whole thing still eating him up inside. He reached over, craned his neck, and pressed a small kiss to the corner of Jason's lip.

Enraptured with the gesture, Jason's eyes raised until they met Nico's own. Nico wondered if Jason could see his nerves boiling in turmoil, or the guilt that he felt. Nico wanted to say _I'm sorry_, but he didn't even know where to start.

Before the guilt could eat him up, Nico dragged himself out of bed and started for his closet. "When Christmas break comes, you should come to LA with me."

"What's in LA?"

"My family. My—dad and Uncle Thanatos. And Persephone." Nico shrugged off his shirt and looked for something parentally acceptable in his closet. It mostly consisted of t-shirts and extra jackets for when Nico got cold during the day. "I think Dad just proposed, actually."

"Any reason for the sudden thought?" Jason asked carefully. He slid off the bed and pulled out a spare set of clothes from nowhere. "Wear some nice pants. Nothing too tight, no t-shirts."

"Since when do I wear anything tight?" Nico snorted. He chucked a rolled up sock in Jason's direction when he heard, _tight enough. _"Well—since you're letting me meet your family, I…it's only right if you can meet mine."

"Juno likes khaki pants."

"I don't own khaki."

"Ah." Jason's eyebrows furrowed together and he frowned. "We could probably drop by a store on the way over."

"It can't be black?"

"Khaki puts her in a good mood."

When Nico looked over, he caught sight of Jason in a royal purple polo that fit all too snugly and a pair of khakis that accentuated how long and taut those legs were. Jason also had a set of loafers huddled in his arm, along with a pair of long socks.

Overall, it looked like his boyfriend was getting ready to go to the country club.

"You…want me to dress like that," Nico muttered slowly.

"Do you own a polo?"

"No."

"Okay. Wear this for the time being." Jason pulled out a v-neck that Nico had bought months ago but never wore because the color was too light. Along with that was the violet school sweater Persephone had gotten him as a truce.

"And the pants?" Nico mused.

"Just wear your sweats for now." As an after thought, Jason added, "Is it possible for you to….?"

"Get rid of the piercings?" Through all the worry and frustration, a wicked smirk still curled against Nico's lips. He hid it as he pulled his t-shirt over his head in favor of the pastel v-neck. As Nico changed from the belt up and unscrewed his four piercings, he stared at himself for the first time and wrinkled his nose. He hated the baby face he had without them.

In his silence, Jason picked up on their earlier conversation. "I don't have to meet your family if you're not comfortable, man."

If _he_ wasn't comfortable? Nico whirled around, nearly chipping his tooth on the back plate of his left labret in disbelief. Arching an eyebrow, he gave Jason a onceover to see if the guy was actually _serious. _

The shock in his eyes apparently gave it away. Regardless, Jason shrugged casually and pressed one of those soft kisses on Nico's forehead. The ones that usually halted all of Nico's thoughts and made him forget what his own name in embarrassment.

"You don't have to," Jason repeated. He reached for the small tub of gel that Nico kept on the corner of his dresser and began moussing his hair. "We can just get this dinner party over with without Juno being overbearing and that can be the interaction with the parental units for the rest of the year."

That only irked Nico even more. The last thing he wanted to do was get a rise out of Jason before their night started. He huffed as the last of his studs were taken out and readjusted his hair.

To his surprise, Jason reached for it first and dug a comb in his curls.

"Jason—_ow._"

"Sorry." Jason's eyebrows furrowed together in worry, but it didn't hide the grin over his face. He paused before flicking parts of Nico's unruly hair over his forehead. "I just want to make you look…presentable."

"I look like I'm fourteen." Nico didn't like it, but he didn't protest. "If I get to meet your family, isn't it fair that you meet mine?"

"I've met Hazel and Frank."

Yeah. And they were always the first two people to come to mind when family was mentioned. Nico didn't doubt that it was the same with Piper, Reyna, and Leo for Jason. After nearly three months together though, Nico was coming around to the idea of all of them being one little domestic group of their own.

Looking up and ready to voice his frustration, he was cut off as he realized that Jason was frowning. Not just any frown, either—Nico saw that frown on Frank many times before Hazel dragged her sweet boyfriend across the country to get their father's blessing. Nico hadn't been there himself since he took some winter classes, but he knew his father well enough to presume the result.

And, being as tactful, calm, and straightforward as Nico was himself, he knew Frank went weak in the knees when Dad gave his blessing.

Come to think of it, Will never met his father. It was still another year before Nico could gather up the nerve to tell his father something Dad already surmised.

The thought itself was enough to make Nico laugh. A short chuckle furled at his throat and he shook his head in disbelief. "You know that you're perfect, right?"

That tipped the iceberg. Jason made a face and rolled his eyes before he took Nico by the shoulders and made them face each other. "If your dad is anything like you are when it comes to Frank and Hazel, I'm going to kiss a lot of ass before I get his approval."

"Frank does _not_ kiss my—_ass!" _Nico clutched his ribs and nearly lost it. "And my dad _likes_ Frank!"

"Hazel said it took you a while before you warmed up to him." Jason tried to let the frustration poke through in his voice, but he was laughing quietly too. After all, most of the things said around this apartment either had Nico rolling his eyes, scowling, or at most, a snicker in the right direction.

"Because Frank is even taller than _you_ and he's my sister's first boyfriend. And I'm an insecure baby who needs my sister." Nico scoffed under his smile and swatted Jason's hand away when he reached for a big glob of hair gel.

"You're _not_ an insecure baby."

"Of _course_ I am. I don't like to share," Nico insisted flippantly. He waltzed back to his closet and pulled out the old aviator's jacket that he kept in the very back for especially cold winters. "And after Bianca, my mother, _and_ my stepmom, it's not like I wanted to share her with anyone. Hazel gets mad I treat her like glass."

Jason wrinkled his nose, apparently knowing first hand what happened when you got on Hazel's bad side. It wasn't pretty. She was short and still had baby fat in her cheeks and still at times reminded Nico of the thirteen-year-old girl he met for the first time at his dad and Marie's wedding, but she also took fencing classes with Percy and Annabeth and loved to go horseback riding. Nico wouldn't hesitate to bet on his sister winning against even the best riders.

"But you're not. Not anymore, then." Jason draped an arm over Nico's waist once more.

"If you think buttering me up is going to distract me from visiting my dad, then you've got another thing coming." Rolling his eyes, Nico decided on a temporary truce and fluff his own hair like his mother had done and Bianca had come to learn. He inspected himself carefully and shrugged. To him, he looked presentable from the waist up.

That was _exactly_ the point, if Jason's sudden whine meant anything. "You said that you and his girlfriend don't get along. I wouldn't want you to stress out over that and choose between pleasing me and your parents."

Nico guffawed in disbelief, immediately whirling around to make eye contact with his boyfriend. "I'm making _you_ stress out with _your _family. And yours is _way worse_ since—" _Since your stepmom has the nerve to __**throw**__herself at you. _

He stopped in his tracks there and watched Jason blink owlishly in curiosity.

"I haven't taken any blood from her blood bank. Not since you gave me yours two months ago," Jason said. He shrugged. Clearly he'd picked up the lapse in Nico's accusation, but not in the direction Nico was going.

It'd been a terrible thing to mull over. When Nico worried, he _worried. _He meant to ask Leo for more details and ways to approach the subject—because there was no way for Nico to walk out of that rich house, arm-in-arm with Jason, and feel good about himself. Jason wasn't good at deflecting his feelings with humor. Not like Percy or Leo.

Dragging the collar of his shirt down a third of an inch, Nico looked into his full-length mirror. His dark bruise had faded into an ugly puce. It didn't hurt unless you touched it—which Nico ended up doing daily out of curiosity and bitter resentment of himself.

Beside him, Jason sucked in a quiet breath, obviously still uncomfortable over the bite himself.

"Why did it hurt?" Nico asked. He curled his finger into the collar until it was a crescent, and traced the spot with his other hand.

"Because I'm an idiot." Jason sighed. He stuffed his hands into his bright khakis and leaned over, body ajar so he could see it for himself. "And I didn't prep you the proper way."

That was what Leo had said.

Turning around to face Jason fully, he kept his fingers curled over the bruise and arched an eyebrow, ready for an explanation.

Jason nudged his own front teeth and bared his fangs. They didn't look that sharp, but he'd explained that they got sharper at the peak of his emotions. It was the same for Reyna, but they had a tendency of coming out involuntarily, too.

"Female mosquitos put their own saliva on human flesh before they suck blood." With a heavy shrug, Jason walked back to the bed and plopped into place. He gestured for Nico to sit beside him. "Vampires sort of work the same way. I gave you a hickey the first time I took your blood. When I pierced your skin, my venom flowed in it, too. It numbed your body long enough for me to drink."

At the mention of that, Nico blinked. He covered the bruise with his palm and felt his face glow with heat.

That, _ahem_, was his favorite part of kissing Jason.

"It's like when the dentists give you those shots in your mouth before they drill your teeth apart." Wrinkling his nose, Jason sat back and frowned. "And I forgot to do that. And—vampire saliva is a _very_ good numbing solution. A lot of witch doctors use it before they make the teeth disappear."

"Witch doctors."

"Yup." With another shrug, Jason sat back and curled his arms over his polo. "And I guess I was just. No. No excuses. I'm completely to blame for hurting you."

"You didn't do it on purpose," Nico said. "You were freaking out."

"It's not an excuse." With a miserable, breathy laugh, Jason shook his head, clearly wanting the incident to go away altogether. "It's—it's not. I hurt you, and you're the last person I would _ever_ want to hurt."

Which was why Jason ran out the door. Nico tried to sigh, but his own frustration was a lump in his throat. Hesitant of what to say, he chose to lean against Jason instead and curled a hand over Jason's own.

On one hand, Nico's heart swelled in his chest from the fact that Jason valued him _that much_. But on the other, it was still Nico's fault that Jason was unable to forgive himself. He brought it up, lost his temper, and out of envy and betrayal couldn't hold his own tongue. On the other, it was his fault that any of this started. It was an issue that was going to be brought up eventually if they were going to stay in Manhattan and close to Juno, but Nico didn't know if it would've been better or worse if it'd been brought up later.

He chewed on his own lip when he realized the solution was out of his reach. "What can I do to make you feel better?"

Another laugh fell from Jason's lips, full and angrily bittersweet. All of it was directed at himself. "You could leave me forever so you'd never have to be in harm's way ever again."

"Not gonna happen." Nico reached over and gripped Jason's hand tightly. "Too complicated."

His heart fluttered when Jason's gaze slowly locked onto his own. Nico's lips pressed tightly together and he narrowed his eyes, just _waiting_ for Jason to deny it.

Only, Jason didn't and he raised Nico's hand to his lips. "I love you."

Goosebumps rose when Jason ran his thumb over Nico's knuckles and heat flushed in Nico's cheeks. He reached up, craning his neck ever so slightly, and molded his hands to the stiff jawline across from him.

Jason met him there with eager lips, breathing life into Nico's mouth like it was just a gust in the wind and with sugary sweetness dancing through his veins.

The kiss was warm and chaste, and slow and mind-boggling. Nico sighed into Jason, readily planning out the rest of his life so all he had to do was stay like this and never leave, and he wondered if Jason felt the same way.

Because this was as good as it got in Nico's life.

When they parted for air, Nico didn't want to stop. His face flushed with pink as everything around him seemed to float, and he buried his face into Jason's chest so he could hear the heavy cadence of that heartbeat. "Me too."

**-x-**

There wasn't a limo, unfortunately.

This was much, much more disturbing.

Jason's hand tightened over Nico's when the Maserati Spyder pulled up in the parking lot. The yellow paint on it was so obnoxiously bright that he swore that someone stole the sun to coat it on the smooth four doors. The guy that was sitting inside of it was worse.

With Thanksgiving only two weeks away, the sky was usually dark by the time Nico got home from classes. This was one of those times.

However, you wouldn't notice the sunset if you saw the car _and_ the guy sitting inside.

"Apollo," Jason greeted carefully.

"Yo! Little bro!" Jason's brother rolled down the window of the passenger seat and pushed his pink aviators above his head. He flashed a pearly white grin and gestured to the car. "Guess what I _took _from Dad!"

Jason shifted uncomfortably from foot-to-foot, eyes falling to Nico. "I have ten siblings."

"Yeah," Nico replied faintly. He was too enamored by the car to care what Jason just said. Nico was in no way a mechanophiliac—especially to Leo's extreme—but even he had to take a moment to breathe in the way the leather just _breathed. _

If Jupiter really owned a car like _this_, it was no wonder why he always got laid.

"Wait—this your boy toy?"

Nico stood straighter at the name and felt Jason basically clinch onto him like a steel bear trap. He frowned at the nickname, eyebrow darting high in the air, but either Apollo didn't pick up on his disdain or he didn't care.

"Cute," Apollo chirped. He lowered his head and arched an eyebrow affectionately, lips curled into a delicate smile. "I won't tell Junejune. Promise."

A sigh of relief left Jason's lips. Nico could hear it flowing onto his own veins once his boyfriend let go of his hand.

"This," Jason said steadily. "Doesn't exactly scream three-seater."

True. Ogling aside, the spyder wasn't a family-friendly car.

"What?" Apollo turned around and made eye contact with Nico, who couldn't help but flinch. A Cheshire grin curled against his lips and he laughed. "When you said you had a hot date, I thought it was _obvious _that there'd be seatsie gropies."

_Seatsie_ _gropies? _Nico cocked his head to Jason and arched an eyebrow.

Who quickly flushed pink and coughed. "Ahem. I didn't call you a hot date."

"You don't think I'm hot?"

"I think you're hot," Apollo said.

Wow. Nico opened his mouth to say something, but the words were beyond his reach. He looked over to Apollo, who looked unbelievingly penchant, and then to Jason, who was looking at the sky with a _'kill me now,_' look.

"I think you're very hot," Jason assured. He opened the side door carefully before plopping in and patted his lap expectantly.

Nico stared at Jason's lap carefully. Really, he _did_ like sitting in it. Very comfortable. But he also didn't have the patience to hear his boyfriend's brother tease them for two hours on the way to Brookville.

Apollo saluted him. "There's always room for one more over here."

"Coming," Nico grumbled. He slid into Jason's lap and felt heat rush to his ears. "We've gotta be careful though. We don't want to get pulled over."

"Aw, no worries man," Apollo said. "I can charm my way out of _any_ ticket."

Jason didn't say a word, so Nico assumed it wasn't a lie.

Ten minutes into their drive, Apollo pulled out his phone and fiddled with the buttons before music blasted through the stereo. Nico sighed and leaned back until his neck was against Jason's collar bone. From the corner of his eye, he caught view of Apollo's grin.

"C'mon," their driver chirped. "You can't be wearing those sweatpants without thinking about seatsie gropies."

Nico didn't even know what that _meant. _

"He doesn't own a pair of khakis," Jason explained. His arms curled around Nico's waist and hands found Nico's fingers. "Do you think we could—"

"Ah, ah, ah! Say no more, little brother!"

They bought him Armani khakis.

(Correction—the price tag specifically announced them as "desert-colored skinny chinos.")

Nico wasn't sure whether he was shocked or if he'd seen it coming. They fit and accentuated his legs _way too well_, and Nico had a brief thought of dying his hair blond and throwing his sweater over his shoulders.

Once Nico had them on, Jason pulled out a platinum card and let the cashier swipe it without even bothering to check the price tag.

"You okay?" Jason asked when he realized that Nico refused to say a word from store to car.

"I could have paid for them myself," Nico said flatly. He stared at his pants carefully and scrunched his nose as Jason pulled him into the car.

"You don't even like them," Jason pointed out. "Besides, you'll probably need them anyway. You know, when you're a doctor."

"What do you think _scrubs _are for?" Nico reached for his back pocket before remembering all he'd brought was his house key. He groaned and glared at his boyfriend. "I'm paying you back when we get home."

"You don't have to."

"_Jason_," Nico said, exasperated.

"_Nico._" Jason matched his tone.

"You just rolled your eyes at me."

"What—no I didn't!"

"I felt it!"

"How can you _feel_ me?"

"I just can!" Nico leaned into the car door and faced his boyfriend with a frown over his lips. He was really helpless here—he had no wallet and no way to get home since Frank and Hazel decided to take another surprise trip to Canada.

"Wow." Apollo clicked his tongue. "You two argue like an old married couple."

At the declaration, they both shut up. Nico's inert stubbornness wasn't going to drill through Jason's hard head. He heard Jason sigh against his neck before Nico was left pouting and Jason kept his mouth shut.

It lasted maybe five minutes.

"So Neeks," Apollo chirped cheerily. "Haven't seen you in a long time. You've gotten pretty tall, man."

_Uh_… "I've never seen you before in my life." As an afterthought, he added, "And it's just…Nico. I go by Nico."

"_No!" _Apollo threw his head back into the seat and clutched his heart. "You don't remember me? I'm so wounded!"

Nico wrinkled his nose in distaste. He turned to face Jason, despite their current spat.

"He did a lot of theater in high school," Jason supplied helpfully. "Very good at Hamlet."

"I also do music! My band and me, Apollo Archer and the 9 Muses!" Apollo grinned with all the arrogance in the world. He raised his head and even had the gall to wink at Nico. Which—was how Nico finally placed the face and understood. "My band and I signed with DOA Records when you were, like, ten. I remember. Cute kid, you were. Pretty sure you had an orgasm when you saw us walk through the door."

Again, Nico's eyebrows furrowed. His attention flew to Jason immediately, who looked torn between choking his brother and finding the nearest pothole to bury himself in for the rest of eternity.

"He was a _minor_, '_pol_." Eventually Jason sighed and gestured to Apollo in a, _he means no harm_ kind of way.

"Well you're not now, right?"

"'_pol_!"

"There were only four of you." Nico decided to ignore the flirting altogether and tried to bring back all he knew about AA9. It wasn't very much, but he did remember getting weak in the knees for that pearly white smile.

(_Man_, was he an idiot.)

"Semantics." Apollo waved his hand dismissively and that was the end of it.

"That doesn't even—" Nico gave up on the sentence before he could finish it. There wasn't any point in arguing with this family if you didn't expect a headache. He opted for a glare instead, directing it straight at Jason with all of his pent up frustration (which was close to none, other than at himself, but he hoped Jason realized that that impracticality was apparently hereditary among all the Maximus family.)

Jason blinked at him, clearly getting none of that.

Ugh.

The rest of the drive was in silence. Nico had a splitting headache from hearing Apollo match the tone of every song on the radio. Apollo was good—there was no doubt about that—but an obnoxious personality like Apollo's wasn't something he liked being stuck in a car with. It was on par with both Percy _and_ Leo, with even less tact.

As they got closer to Brookville, Nico could feel the tension knotting up in Jason's pulse. He leaned against his unsteady boyfriend, hand curling against the flat surface of Jason's wrist, and squeezed it tightly.

Apollo's choice of song switched from a nifty Ed Sheeran ballad to Shania Twain. His lips fell straight as they pulled out of the freeway and onto the streets. "So did Jay here tell you the rules?"

Nico looked to his boyfriend, waiting. Jason looked terrified.

Which…was something that was hard to look at. Too hard. The guilt surfaced at the tip of Nico's throat again, and he was ready to jump out the car and beat himself up for being a terrible boyfriend.

The thought died as soon as it surfaced. Nico knew better than to make this about him. It was about _Jason_ and how Jason felt about his _mother_ and how they were going to get through this dinner intact and still together. Jason still obeyed every whim of Juno's and was afraid of defying her. No matter how much they were willing to sacrifice for each other, Nico feared that Jason would put Juno in front of him. And he was sure Jason feared that too.

His hand went from Jason's wrist to Jason's fingers, winding carefully around them before giving an apprehensive squeeze.

Jason's nervous breath fell on his lips. "We can't do this when we get there."

He tugged on Nico's hand to provide an example and Nico understood immediately.

"That's what Apollo means. Juno—she's not one for PDA." Jason grimaced, and Nico tightened his grip over their hands. He leaned back, ear against the pulse in Jason's neck, and thanked the gods that it seemed to calm both of them down. "Especially of the same-sex persuasion."

"Juno doesn't know you're bi," Nico translated simply. "Okay."

"As far as she's concerned, she just thinks you're a friend that I've met on the way who also plans on being a doctor," Jason explained. He fell into a thoughtful silence before adding, "She likes that you want to be a doctor."

"Oh yeah, bro—" Apollo brazenly interfered without shame. "Juno once caught me with my ass up in the air with my boyfriend, Cinth, and sent me off to doctoring school. I got the highest score out of all the applicants on my MCATs because of her."

_Doctoring School. _Nico's jaw tightened and he twitched.

"I'm a neurosurgeon now," Jason's brother went on.

"Don't disagree with her, either. From now on, everything that she says is right." Jason's eyes lashed to Nico reluctantly, and Nico had no trouble reading this particular look. There was an underlying tone of _begging_ because disagreeing was a vital part of their relationship that came with pros and cons.

For Jason, Nico could swallow his own tongue. He nodded slowly before bobbing his head up and down and crossed his arms. "Okay."

"And whatever she says—"

"Agree with her," Nico finished. Even if he had a feeling he'd rather jump into a minefield than watch one of his loved ones suffer.

"Whatever she says about _me_," Jason continued. His lips pressed together, eyes darkening with disgust. It _killed_ Nico, because he knew all of that bitterness was still drilling into Jason's own self. "Don't...I can't help it if she—"

"What I know about you now," Nico cut him off, "makes me love you. What happens today shouldn't—_won't_—change how I feel about you."

He swallowed the lump in his throat and watched Jason blink away the beginning of tears.

"We can always back out," Nico said firmly. He squeezed his eyes shut, wondering if anyone felt as horrible as he felt, and knew that wasn't possible. "I'll still love you."

"_Actually…_we can't." Out of nowhere, Apollo parked the car alongside four Ferraris inside of a garage neither Nico nor Jason noticed they were sitting in. "We're here."

Nico glared irritably at Apollo. He promised not to give an attitude to Juno—Apollo was a different story. Nico was beginning to think that most of this flew over the apparent musician/neurosurgeon's head anyway.

"I'll just go inside and change into my best pair of chinos. Feel free to get out after a quickie if you want." Apollo smiled, tipped his invisible hat, and left the car. For maybe a second—before peeking his head through the car door. "Lysol wipes are under the passenger's seat. They work really well to remove cum stains."

"Oh my _god_—" With every ounce of patience gone, Nico slapped a hand over his eyes while Apollo sang, _Bye~! _

He only opened them when he heard Jason's laugh. "_Pfft_—"

It erupted into a bark—and through all that pain, Jason was grinning.

The uneasiness of that smile struck Nico's heart with a dagger. He crawled out of the front seat and offered a hand to his boyfriend. "Ready?"

Blue eyes narrowed hesitantly before Jason conjured a nod. "As I'll ever be."


	5. Chapter 5

**-x-**

**Chapter V**

**-x-**

Juno looked exactly like Nico imagined—a stern woman in her fifties in the most modest clothing possible, with sharp eyes that judged everyone as soon as they walked through her front door. Except she was twenty years older and still looked like she had the vivacity of a new mother in her thirties. She gasped and smiled in a way that made Nico feel absolutely uncomfortable before running up to Jason and throwing her arms around him.

Nico's heart leaped in his chest when he saw her. Jason had smiled back at her, albeit weakly, and returned her embrace when she walked toward them. She called him out for it, too.

"Is that the face you want to greet your mother with when you see her?" Juno clicked her tongue, and her voice made the hairs on the back of Nico's neck stand erect.

"Sorry Ju—_Mom_," Jason said. Neither Nico nor Juno missed the stutter in his sentence. She even raised her eyebrows at him, eerie thin smile tightening across her lips when he made a hiccup. Jason curled his hands into balls before quickly stuffing them into his pockets. He turned one foot toward his not-boyfriend for the time being. "This is Nico—the one that I've been telling you all about. He's really excited about your work."

"Yes, I—I hear that your profession is sonography." Nico reached up to shake her hand and clamped his lips tightly together when Juno opted to take a step back instead.

She sized him up with these cold blue eyes that looked nothing like Jason's own. He knew that they weren't related. They weren't even _close_—that was why Jason hesitated before he could accept calling her his mother. But with her straight black hair, head held high, and lips skewed into a strategic smile, she looked like she wasn't supposed to belong in Jason's life at all.

"I hear that you're also interested in going into the medical field," Juno chimed sweetly. She tilted her head, giving Nico a careful onceover before she smiled again, like a knife carving its path on a face. "Unfortunately I don't think you'll be able to get into any medical school if your hair looks like…_that._"

By _that_, Juno meant Nico's undercut. His lips twitched, and he _knew_ she noticed. "Well I—I don't think anyone will care if I'm the one saving their life in the ER."

That thin smile got even thinner. Beside him, Nico heard Jason sucking in a nervous breath and berated himself.

"But I thank you for your opinion," he said carefully, cautious of biting his own tongue. "Maybe I'll consider fashioning my hair like Apollo's."

In that dorky comb over covered in so much gel that Nico was sure that Apollo's hairdo could double as a helmet.

That, however, clearly satisfied Juno. She smiled triumphantly, the smugness obnoxiously flashing in her eyes. "Well, dear, it's completely up to you what you decide to do with your life."

And now Nico _completely_ knew what her game was.

She focused on faults that didn't satisfy her image as The Perfect InsertNameHere and picked at it like drilling a hole into a _scab_ until Jason was convinced that something was wrong with him— then turned it around to make it sound like he was making his own decision.

It was no wonder why Jason went from trying to satisfy his loved ones to breaking the habit and become more impulsive. Juno stopped letting him have his own opinions a long time ago.

Persephone tried to do the same thing. But Nico spent the first half of his life with his big sister and mother who loved him when his dad had little expectations for any of them.

"As you can see, being a doctor certainly brings in a lot more money for you." Juno used one hand to show off the antechamber around them. The floor was glossed and made with white marble, while large columns stood row-by-row to support the floor to ceiling. The wall parallel to the front door was covered in a painting that showed off people from the Ancient Rome Era.

All-in-all, it looked more like the first room to a museum more than a house.

Juno gestured for them to follow, and Jason automatically trotted after her. She turned around and stared straight at Nico again. "Now, if you're interested in becoming a doctor, I hope you understand that you can't be _under the influence_."

Nico twitched, his feet standing firm on the ground. "I…don't get what you mean, ma'am."

"_Drugs_ of course, Nicholas." Juno's façade didn't change. Her poker face remained, and Nico knew she was baiting him. "You're not going to tell me that when you're in surgery, you are alright with smoking a bong and risk dropping a knife inside your patient, are you?"

"I…don't smoke, ma'am. I don't do any drugs." Nico smiled tightly and saw Jason nervously fiddling with the collar of his shirt. "I've never done drugs."

"Oh—I apologize." Juno gasped, feigning surprise as she gave him another looksee. "Just, with your _stature…" _

"I can do a drug test if you'd like," he half-heartedly mused. The rest of him was ready to punch her.

Those cold eyes glued to him icily, and he waited for another tactic. Instead, she laughed and shook her head. "Oh—don't be silly! There's no way we could do a urine sample and get the results before dinner."

"I just want to make sure you know your little boy is in good hands." Ugh. Note to self: hang out a lot less at Walgreens and spend more time studying _away_ from Percy. Nico kept his hands furled in his pockets, and waited for her reaction.

The eerie smile stretched. "Well, I can _assure_ you that you're already a better candidate as Jason's friend than some of the other lunatics."

"Oh, ma'am?"

"Yes—what were their names? Leo, Piper, and Reyna?" Juno tutted. "I hate them."

"Oh," Nico said. He couldn't think of anything else to follow.

Beside him, Jason tensed, and Nico wanted nothing more than to hold his boyfriend's hand. He waited until her back was turned and reached over to brush his fingers over Jason's knuckles. Jason shirked them away immediately.

"Not until we leave," Jason murmured. His voice was hoarse; demeanor stiff. Nico barely recognized him. "Okay?"

Nico knew he wasn't helping by talking back to someone in Jason's life who practically held all the power. He could _see_ all of the tactics and strings Juno used by her words alone that turned her stepson into her own personal puppet.

This was just one visit—that alone was already draining their energy and they were barely into the mansion. Convincing Jason to leave his parents and never come back was something Nico didn't think he could _do. _

"Okay," he said. Because nothing else felt sensible enough to continue.

**-x-**

Jupiter looked like a wrinkly prune. He was half his wife's height, needing the assistance of his walker to get from Juno's arm to his chair at the head of the dining table. Jason greeted his father with a forced polite smile, and Nico knew that was even harder to muster.

Thalia and her father shared the same exact eyes—electrifying. Piercing. Powerful. Walking through the halls Nico saw plenty pictures of Jupiter and Juno whenever they were a younger couple in what he assumed was in the early 1960s. Jason had his father's prominent jawline, which was obvious from those old photos, but it was definitely gentler.

He doubted Thalia would ever admit it, but she held the same verve and authority in the way she stood that her dad did. Her mother, too—Nico'd seen a few pictures of her. She'd apparently been like Tristan McLean, and was a starlight back in the 80s. Jason took after his mother with those locks of pale blond hair and sky blue eyes, but his poker face was all his own.

All of Jason's siblings where present, too, save his sister.

Herk was a man who looked like he was in his early thirties, just like Leo had described. He looked like he used to be a talented body builder, but it all atrophied after years of emptiness. He slowly looked up from the dinner table when Jason and Nico entered the room, pressed his lips tightly together, and said not one word.

Apollo and his sister Diana were present at the other end of the table. She looked short and young in comparison to her brother, but they were apparently twins. Her personality was the exact opposite, too: _normal. _Apollo gave them a happy wave that Nico saw no reason to return.

Ares and Vulcan were the last two that caught Nico's attention. Vulcan wasn't that attractive. He looked like he was in his late thirties, plump for his age, with a swollen face that was littered with acne and black spots, and hair that shot up like it was caught in an explosion. Vulcan looked unsightly, but the way he threw himself into an invention at the end of the table made Nico think he didn't care.

The other one, Ares, Nico already hated a lot. He looked a few years older than Apollo, so probably directly at the age of thirty, and was obnoxiously loud in the ways Nico hated the most. Ares had a frame that was three times Jason's width and was even a foot taller than his little brother. His whole hand looked bigger than Juno's shoulder when he rested it there and gave her a peck on the cheek.

Then, he declared, "So you let little _JayJay_ bring his boyfriend, huh?"

There wasn't poison in the way he talked. Nico couldn't even find the hidden _insult_ behind Ares's implication—but for some reason he felt like the sentence suddenly deafened the room.

Nico blinked and turned to face Jason, who chose to keep his pokerface.

"Hi Ares." A second passed before Jason continued, "He's not my boyfriend. He's just a friend."

Ares smirked. The way he smirked only pissed Nico off. "I guess you won't mind then if I get him to sneak off to my room tonight."

"_Ares!_" Juno _tsk_ed him and everyone could see him visibly flinch. "We do _not_ condone that _lifestyle _here! Jason would know better than to promote it!"

"Yeah," Ares grumbled. 'Because Jason knows _everything._"

Instantly Nico cocked his head to his current not-boyfriend and arched an eyebrow, waiting for Jason to retort. It didn't come.

Instead, Jason stood firm and looked like he was pretending that he didn't hear the snide comment. Nico had no choice but to follow in suit, and that meant _not_ interfering. Even if that instinct ingrained in his heart hated seeing people he loved get hurt.

Dinner went on with Nico grinding his teeth.

There was definitely a generation gap between all the kids. Vulcan and Minerva looked like they were well in their early fifties, while Jason, the youngest, barely made a dent in his twenties. According to Jason, even though their father was (still surprisingly) a sleezebag, Minerva took the opposite route and never planned to marry. Vulcan was too invested in his work to even want a relationship. Jason continued, insisting that if Vulcan could _build_ a wife, then he would.

The others, Mercury and Dionysus, looked like they'd rather be elsewhere. Dionysus was a plump man who at this point was on his tenth glass of wine while Mercury was busying himself with his phone and making calls like he was a CEO to some company.

The food was delicious, but the smell of it was sickening. The more Nico ate, the more nauseating it was to sit at the table.

He'd been placed between Vulcan and Ares at the dinner table, while Jason was seated across from him and to the right of Jupiter. Juno asked questions to all of her children, berated them all, manipulated them, and pulled the same thing on Nico. _Exactly_ like the rest of her children since Nico couldn't give retorts.

All the while, Jupiter kept silent as he struggled to sic a knife through his filet mignon. Juno kept _touching_ Jason.

She rubbed her hand over his back in ugly circles and smiled at him with those thin lips as he tried not to go blind from the overly bright chandeliers.

That was the worst part of it all: Juno orchestrated the lights to shine at least 1000 watts a piece and had them beaming directly at her favorite stepson. Flashbacks of Nico's first date with his boyfriend kept ebbing his mind and the voice accompanying his painful sanity kept reminding him that the beacon in the dining room was _millions_ of times worse than the crummy lighting at their local McDonald's.

Jason had commented on it. She told him to shrug it off and that it wasn't a big deal. And now Juno was clicking her tongue at the fact that her son looked so unkempt.

No one at the table seemed to care. In fact, Apollo was _very good_ at hiding the iPod next to him right now while Diana seemed to be playing with a dog or something beneath the table.

"So how did you two meet, Nico?" The good news was, Juno finally got it in her head that Nico's name wasn't short for anything. Unfortunately, it still rubbed him the wrong way from the way she said his name. She reminded Nico of the Queen from Snow White when she became the old hag, trying to seduce others into her ideals by voice alone.

Jason opened his mouth to speak, and then Juno reached down and patted something that was hopefully just his knee.

"Don't be so nervous!" she laughed, Nico was sure someone at the other end of the table rolled their eyes, and then Juno's eyes were glued to him again.

"We…" Nico's voice trailed off. It wasn't exactly a glamorous story. There wasn't any way to say it without Juno reacting by coddling her stepson further and possibly plunging that hand lower, in a more personal space. His face constricted and he couldn't _believe_ she had the nerve to do this in front of everyone else.

Then, Jason caught his glance. Nico looked over, wondering if Jason could read his look of, _What do you want me to tell her?_ Since they didn't rehearse this particular part.

A subtle nod followed as Jason lowered his head in hesitant agreement. _You can tell them. _

"I…was on my way to Walgreens when I noticed that he was waiting outside. I've got a friend who works there, who doesn't like him, so Jason paid me twenty dollars and I got everything he needed out the store. Then after that we just—" Made out and made out some more. Nico's eyebrows shifted as he tried to find the PG version of their early encounters. He was pretty sure he was red in the face, and that wasn't helping. Not in the least. "We hit it off pretty fast."

"To find out that you're a doctor later on—you must take good care of my son, here." Juno smiled approvingly as she stroked Jason's back gently. His face was placid—so hopefully, the cover story was a meaningful one. "You should have come straight here. You know I would bring you anything that you like."

"I—it was a long trip from California," Jason admitted. "And I lost your address."

"Oh? Here I thought that you stopped loving me." Juno flashed a look in Jason's direction, her eyes lighting up and feeding a message to Jason that clearly wasn't healthy. "I'm glad that isn't the case."

Nico's hands knotted against his pants beneath the table.

"So what?" Ares scoffed. He scarfed down his steak and snorted loudly; loud enough to echo against the quiet walls. The moment he spoke, Nico caught everyone else rolling their eyes if they were still paying attention. Jupiter took a brief moment to pause from his food and look up. What Nico was beginning to learn was that Ares didn't have pent up anger and/or jealousy against Jason. It was more like he had a hobby of trying to get a rise out of people.

And Nico _hated_ that Ares's comments were getting to him.

Lucky for him, Ares could smell anger. He side-eyed Nico, baring his fangs in a smirk as Nico instinctively looked back, and Nico tapped his fork against his plate.

He sucked in one big breath and gritted his teeth.

_How_ did he not smell it before?

"Is sonography a rewarding job?" Nico asked as kindly as possible. This dinner was like the several that his father forced him to with colleagues or worse—with Persephone. She was still young enough that she loved to suckle on wine the same way Dionysus did. After that she was a basket case who threatened to turn him into several different types of vegetation.

His answer was Ares guffawing again. He shook his head and jabbed his fork at Jason. "You know Jay here is the favorite? Everyone _loves_ him. Especially Mom. Mom _coddles _him."

Nico shifted uncomfortably in his seat and watched Jason's wary eyes raise to meet his. Beside him, Ares barked with laughter and caused his chair to rumble.

Jason was mortified.

"Man, oh, man. This one, though. It's been what, six years since I saw you?" Ares pounded his feet against the ground. "You see, _Neeks_, it's a wonder why he hasn't brought a girlfriend home. We all know he's gonna marry whoever Mom picks out, since she's got good taste."

"Thank you, darling." Juno smiled and nodded her head in acknowledgement, but the appreciativeness was tight.

He waited for her to get on her son's case again, but it never came. Instead, she turned her frigid gaze to Ares, commanding him to stop by sight alone, and was snubbed the entire way. Nico could actually see how the scenario would unfold in his mind: Ares would talk, Juno would yell, and an argument would erupt, fueled by weed and years of manipulation.

When he turned back to meet Jason's eyes, he realized there was fear awaiting him. Jason was scared. _Fucking_ _terrified._

This was supposed to fall under the lines of _don't listen to what Juno says_, even if it was coming from Ares's mouth. Nico wasn't sure how to tell Jason how he already _knew_, and assure his not-boyfriend that Nico considered whatever Ares babbled on about fell into the same category of _don't let Juno convince you to jump off a bridge. _

"It's…a little too bright," Jason murmured weakly. He tugged at his collar, eyebrows furrowing.

"Jason, honey," Juno said, "you already said that." She rubbed circled in his back, sitting even closer than before. "This is how our dinners always go. You wouldn't want to ruin it, would you?"

Jason opened his mouth to give a polite response, lips parting like they popped a bubble, and he steadied himself with both hands against the clothed table. He shook his head obediently.

"So what if one person doesn't like you?" Apollo said. He sat on the other end of the elongated table, but he shouted loud enough to be heard over even the violin music. "I get reviews all the time! In and out of the ER! You think the O'Briens liked me after I told them their son only had three weeks to live? Pah!"

"That's a bit of a different case, Apollo," Minerva snorted. She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, clearly done with _all_ of her brothers. "Juno, I have a class to teach in the morning."

"Is that how you address your mother?" Juno asked. "What is more important than spending quality time with your family?"

"Teaching class," her stepdaughter retorted tiredly.

Juno's lips firmed, before she ignored Minerva altogether and went on to make a scene out of Jason's food. "Honey, you've hardly touched your broccoli."

"Not a fan of broccoli," Nico supplied helpfully.

"Dad, my company is making a big delivery to the Japan division and I'm better suited flying back to the office," Mercury suddenly said.

Jupiter patted his linen cloth against his mouth and stared at the son who just addressed him.

"You'll stay," Juno sweetly retorted for her husband. Her hand fell to Jupiter's shoulder and she rubbed it the same way she'd done with Jason.

Mercury rolled his eyes, but he clearly wasn't going to argue.

"Too bright," Jason murmured again, and Nico's hands coiled into fists in his lap.

"Mom takes Jason out a lot. Or she used to. She coddles the poor guy," Ares said, repeating exactly what he said not two seconds ago. Apparently he decided to continue, even with no one paying attention to him. Nico had no choice now, since he was stuck sitting beside the druggie. "I don't think I've ever seen him make a decision by himself. He probably wouldn't be able to bring a girlfriend home if he _tried, _you know."

Gee, Nico thought. He wondered why.

"He wouldn't even know where to start. You know, emotionally—not body-wise." Ares licked his teeth, grinning toothily while Jason turned green. He punched Nico spiritedly in the shoulder. "_Gods_, man. You wanna know how many girls Jason had coming in by the time he turned twelve?"

"I don't want to," Nico said.

But he didn't have a say in the matter. Ares only shook his head, laughing, and downed the bottle of wine he'd ordered the servants to keep next to him. "_Twelve. _Twelve!"

"That's enough," Jupiter said, speaking for the first time. The actual tone of his voice made Nico jump, skin crawling. Jupiter looked like a feeble old man, but his tone sounded like he could command the skies to his very whim.

"Girls, in and out of his room. I don't know how he did it." Ares chuckled, his hand slapping down onto the table. "You know some of 'em actually looked like they were with Dad the day before?"

"That's enough," Jupiter repeated, voice booming like thunder in two simple words.

Nico backtracked, getting away from the way Ares was talking _pissed him off_ and—listened.

His heart stopped in his chest.

There was no _implication_, here. Not like how Leo phrased it. Ares babbled on about it like he was commenting on how the grass outside was getting tall, and it was as direct as driving a car into a wall.

_Lots of women_, his mind told him in a voice that sounded painstakingly like Reyna's.

_Twelve_, it continued, taking on Piper's bitter tone.

_Twelve-years-old, not girls, but women, twelve-year-old boy. Do the math. _Leo drilled it in his head and Nico's throat swelled to the point he wasn't sure he could _breathe. _

He looked around the dining room table to see how the rest of Jason's siblings were reacting. Minerva was glaring, Vulcan was staring into space, Mercury was on his phone, Diana and Apollo looked like they didn't care or didn't hear, and Herk seemed lost.

Finally his gaze reeled back to Jason, and Nico's heart shattered in his chest, because Jason looked like he was about to have a panic attack and no one seemed to care. And Ares _talking_ made it all worse, but from that man's irritating tone, the first thought that came to Nico's mind was _Every Man For Himself. _

"I need to use the restroom." Nico's chair scraped against the marble floor like an alarm. All eyes fell to him, even the old man's, and he cleared his throat as he put an arm's length of distance between himself and this _fucking family. _"Jason, can you show me where it is?"

"Are you feeling unwell, sweetie?" Juno asked him in that disgusting voice.

"Just a little," Nico murmured back. He pushed his bangs out of his eyes and locked gazes with his not-boyfriend, who needed to be his boyfriend _right now_ so Nico could just hold him and let Jason unravel in his arms and discuss a new game plan to get _out_ of here.

Those sky blue eyes looked gray when they instinctively assessed each other, and Jason's kindness was lost in cloudy frustration.

"Perhaps Apollo can show you the way," Juno said not too long after Nico's response.

"I can do it," Jason muttered. The words sounded sickeningly weak and faint in this room. He staggered to his feet, stance timid as he walked around the table to meet Nico.

"Ares, you should know _better_ than to…" was all that they heard as they trailed off down the hall in silence.

Nico was nauseous, anger ready to burst through the edge of his throat so he could rid his stomach of all the _shit_ that he was fed during dinner. He wanted to punch Ares for revealing something that Jason clearly didn't want out in the open, and then scream at all of Jason's siblings for them all having their own agendas. Nico was actually finding Apollo's own ignorance painful despite the fact he was sure he never wanted to step foot in a car with him again.

"I'm sorry," Jason whispered quietly.

"Don't be," Nico grumbled instantly. He looked up to assess his boyfriend's complexion, and cursed under his breath.

Jason's demeanor was as white and pristine as the walls, so deathly in color that he looked ready to collapse. That thought was supported by the fact that Jason was using the wall to drag himself across the hall.

Hesitation was a thing of the past. Nico reached out to intertwine his hand in Jason's. Jason swept him into a tight embrace, and Nico dragged Jason down so that Jason could hide in all of him.

He clawed his hands into the back of Jason's polo, caring little for it now. Jason breathed a hot, shaky breath into his neck, and Nico knew it was all that his boyfriend could do so he wouldn't breakdown.

"I knew," Nico whispered. "Leo told me last week. Right before you and I made up."

The embrace Jason had him in was so tight now that the back of Nico's feet were no longer against the ground. He hugged Jason as closely as possible so he could stupidly act like a shield for his much bigger boyfriend, but felt Jason stiffen.

For a brief moment, Jason unhinged himself from the crook of Nico's shoulder and stared at Nico with colder eyes.

It took all the courage in Nico's system not to falter. He trembled, too, hands too rattled to grip Jason and continue holding him close. "He was telling me why you were scared. And if I was serious about this relationship, then I—I need to know this about you."

Another breath fell from Jason's lips, this time more constrained.

"He had no right to tell me," Nico continued, hoping that was what Jason wanted to hear. He just wanted Jason to say something. _Anything. _His throat tightened and he rubbed his forehead to delay the incoming migraine. Tears stung, following the rest of his misery. "You're not the one that should be sorry. I am."

Jason took him by the hand before he could break down out in the open. His other hand was still slinked around Nico's waist, afraid that Nico would evaporate if even a hair's distance was placed between them.

They walked, Nico following blindly before he heard a door slowly open, and he was practically carried to a stool.

He opened his eyes, pulling them away from Jason's sleeve, and forced himself to take a calm breath.

The room was sleek, painted royal purple with a four-poster bed sitting casually in the center. The columns were painted—if not _actually_—gold, while the mattress held pillows and a blanket that looked like they'd never been used.

Nico frowned and looked back to his boyfriend. Jason gestured weakly to the private bathroom, which they both knew Nico wasn't going to use.

"This is your room?" Nico asked.

"Yes." Jason said. He waltzed over to the bed and perched.

"They're going to wonder where you went."

"Let them." Jason rubbed the frustration out of his eyes and sighed with exhaustion. He was taking all of this in surprisingly well. Nico was suspicious.

Instead of just staring at Jason, his eyes wandered to the bed with the 100 Thread Count sheets and he chewed on his lip.

"They got a new bed," Jason said, knowing exactly what his young boyfriend was thinking. He clasped his hands together and leaned forward, expression tired and thoughtful. "I haven't—I haven't slept with anyone in this room in years. Haven't _slept_ in this room in general."

Nico swallowed hard. It occurred to him that he knew nothing about this man. Sure—Nico knew Jason was half-demon and loved his comrades like family, and wanted to be an astronaut because to Jason, the only way to get away from his parents was to be on a different _planet_. _Everyone_ in this family only looked out for themselves—save Thalia. And Nico saw why she loathed them.

He knew Jason, talked to Jason—but what Nico knew didn't feel like enough to _protect_ him.

It was freaking irony. Not even two days into meeting each other, Nico had no qualms against telling Jason about his family. The joke was that Jason's vampire pheromones made him talk. He didn't know from that point on he signed himself up for a lifetime of devotion and protection so that he could feel raw vulnerability without feeling weak ever again.

"You want to know what my childhood was like," Jason speculated. He scanned Nico's expression, and they both knew where their train of thought was heading.

Forcing himself to nod, Nico was too dumbstruck to speak. His mind went numb, and he bit on his tongue. Funny. He spent the entire night keeping his thoughts to himself and when Jason wanted him to say something, Nico was afraid that he'd say something stupid and abrasive.

"You…don't have to." So he chose his words cautiously, voice inaudible even to himself. "I don't want to make you. I don't want…I-I _never _want to treat you the way…" _The way she treats you._

Before he could _attempt_ to conjure the nerve to finish that sentence, Jason folded hands over Nico's shoulders and enveloped him in a surging kiss.

The power flowed through Nico's veins as he kissed back, so delicate and raw and solid at the same time, with the yearning knotting without end in his throat. He choked on the fragileness of Jason's lips, so afraid that this bind would break by one simple flick.

It'd only been a few hours, he reminded himself, since they were like this—but hours, minutes, _seconds_ were too long away from each other. They _needed _each other. To hold tightly like this, and block out everything outside of Nico's room back at his apartment.

Rolling his thumbs against Jason's jawline, he hoped Jason could feel his love. He wanted Jason's feelings to tangle in the same chaotic disarray as his own, only for a tiny beam of light to push through and shine like a precious beacon that let Jason know that everything would be alright so long as they were together.

Jason's love flowed straight back, sweet and aggressive as it clung to him, _assuring_ Nico that Jason was _there. _

His toes curled—body, mind, and soul invested in the boggling sensation of Jason's heart against his own, and Nico could have cried at how gentle all of it was.

_Stupid_, he wanted to say. Stupid, because this wasn't about taking care of Nico. This was supposed to be Nico holding Jason close and telling Jason that everything he knew about love from this family was a lie, and Nico would spend the rest of eternity teaching him what that word really meant, and promising this intangible emotion would _never_ grow dull between them.

"Love you," Nico breathed when one of them finally gathered the courage to break free. He gripped Jason tightly by the arms before his boyfriend could pull back and wanted to stay that way. Looking up again, he saw the smoky gray clouds in Jason's gaze. Gripping his boyfriend more firmly, Nico reached up to press his forehead against Jason's own, and repeated, "I love you."

"Marry me." Jason sighed.

"Okay," Nico replied. He chuckled softly, realizing how stupid and amazing it all sounded, before allowing Jason to tug him onto the bed and into a better embrace. Jason's skin was lukewarm again, slowly returning to a more human degree.

_It wasn't enough_, his mind chided. The cool touch of Jason's lips had been awe-inspiring, but there was no way Jason would be able to walk back to dinner without collapsing. He hadn't seen Jason at his worst yet. Nico was too scared to.

At the same time, he knew they couldn't stay long. Juno would probably start looking for them. Nico just wished he hadn't reached his daily maximum for social interaction already.

"She's going to realize we're together," Nico muttered. "If Ares's comments haven't tipped her off."

He felt Jason deflate under him, the words clearly yanking him back from Cloud 9. Then, Jason chuckled. "She probably already knows. There're cameras in here."

Nico stiffened. "_What?" _

For a brief moment, Jason peeled an arm away from Nico's body and gestured to a far corner of the ceiling, where—sure enough—a camera lay, active and rotating in a perfect circle.

His much shorter boyfriend scrambled to the ground and dragged the empty stool toward the wall. "Jason—you _can't_ live like this."

"What are you doing?" Jason asked quietly.

"I'm _taking this down. _Why would you—this isn't—it's not _fair_ to you." Realizing that the camera wasn't going to fall just because Nico was fiddling with it, he chucked off his shoe and slapped it against the metal hinges twice.

"All the rooms have it."

"Not all the rooms have a twelve-year-old boy getting molested by an adult," Nico seethed. He gave the camera one hard hit—and it echoed through the room. Neither one of them spoke, and the lump in Nico's throat made it hard to swallow.

Fuck.

His heart flopped, hiding down in his stomach.

Minutes passed and Nico forced himself to turn around.

The last thing he expected was for Jason to smile at him. It was fearful and weak, clearly taking all of his strength, but this wasn't going to be a subject that he wanted to avoid. Instead, Jason pat the space beside him and scooted toward the edge of the mattress to make room.

Nico's feet hit the ground and he followed Jason's command, unable to think for himself.

Silence followed.

Jason's whole body slid forward, the soles of his shoes firm on the ground while he hunched over in his perch, hands clasped against his mouth. Nico clutched a gold column tightly, knuckles flashing white as he did so.

Swallowing his nerves, Nico turned until he met Jason's form. It wasn't a good segue to what traumatized him during that dinner, but Nico doubted they could leave this room without ever discussing it at all.

"We had to discuss it," Jason reaffirmed—again reading Nico's thoughts like they were as clear as day. "It was going to come up, either way, if I love you as much as I do."

"Did she ever touch you?" Nico asked quietly. His hands curled at his knees and his heart was suffocated by these words.

"No," Jason confessed. And Nico knew with a delicate matter like this one, Jason wouldn't lie to him. "But a lot of her colleagues did, once I hit puberty. Some of my dad's, too. I thought it was consensual at the time, but—but it wasn't. I know it's not, now."

"Jason." Nico reached over to squeeze Jason's hand and assure him that he didn't need to speak. It wasn't easy. He knew it wasn't for Jason. "I still _love_ you. You don't have to—"

"I want you to know." The edge of Jason's lip curled into a bitter, cruel straight line. "It's okay."

And then the truth came out.

He'd been two, Jason explained. Jupiter fell in love with the same woman twice, and both times she bared him a child. The first time, before Thalia was born, Juno loathed her so much that she tried to make this half-demon miscarry because Tiffany Grace had the nerve to come into her office and request Jupiter's _wife_ as a midwife. Their mother made a lot of stupid decisions, Jason said with disgust and resentment in his voice. So, _so_ many before she died.

That was why Thalia wanted to be on her own after she hit thirteen. She was half-demon and could protect herself.

When Jason was born, it was only a few years before Thalia decided to run away. Instead of hating him like Juno did her, she took him in with open arms and stole him away by the time he turned two.

From there on out, he was Juno's son. Even of the two she bore herself, Jason was her favorite. And she made it _impossible_ for Jason to ever stop loving her. Because it would hurt her feelings, he explained. If he chose to do something that didn't involve her, then he was choosing to abandon her.

And Jason couldn't abandon his mother. Not the one who for thirteen years raised him as her own. That was common sense right there: choose a loved one because they were irreplaceable. Juno always promised to take him to the next baseball game, basketball game, play, or movie that she ended up making Apollo or Minerva take him to instead.

The cameras were _normal_ to him.

When he was five, he asked, and Mom—Juno explained that he was just so cute that she didn't want anyone else to steal him away, and he believed her.

Before that, when he was still that two-year-old who had no clue why his mom was missing and why he couldn't see his sister anymore, Juno bottle fed him blood to calm him down.

When he turned six, his classmates in school told him drinking blood wasn't normal. The next day Juno started homeschooling him. He remembered asking about the school, and Juno got upset that Jason would want to leave him. She told him that he threw a fit in class because they weren't together, and Jason tried for years to remember that tantrum, and it took him until two years before now to realize there'd never been a tantrum that made him leave school.

When he was twelve, blood wasn't enough. His voice started changing, height shooting high in the air, and his body felt different. It _sensed_ pheromones and sought him out.

When he told Juno that, she introduced him to Semele, who he later found out was Dionysus's mother. She liked him a lot and loved to play with him. When she played more than he wanted, he ran out of the room to get his mother—and Juno told him it was okay.

Do it. It would help his restlessness, and he could get fresh blood without getting irritated. Mom had never been wrong before.

And it felt good, after a while. So good. Juno's right streak was still there.

And then Leto liked him too. And Hebe, and Io, and Lamia, Gerana, and Cydippe. They all liked him because he was a good boy, and Jason followed Juno's order to sleep with them. There were a lot of women—so many more. She promised that if he did what she asked, then he would be able to go out whenever he wanted.

It wasn't like his thirst for Nico's blood, he admitted openly. One sip of Nico's blood lasted him three months. Sometimes the blood of all these women would last him, and other times they would completely reject his system and he would be bedridden for days or even _weeks. _

By the time he turned fifteen he developed enough of a nerve that he _hated_ when his father slept around with other women and _betrayed_ his mom. He thought he was _better_ than his father because Juno chose his women for him. He was _wrong_ for it too.

Then Piper and Leo ran into him in Central Park, after he'd taken a ten mile run to cool himself off. Piper recognized him as a half-demon right away, and Leo went with the flow and welcomed Jason into their humdrum lives.

"They found out about what Juno's arrangement was after that," Jason explained. He resorted to stroking a hand through Nico's hair as Nico attempted to let the information soak in. He stared at the golden columns with a mixed expression, floored by the raw earnestness in those words. Jason wasn't lying to him. He couldn't feel it. "And I thought it was normal. That _I_—I was normal. Then they kept telling me that it wasn't, and that a fifteen-year-old boy shouldn't be getting as much intimacy as I was. And when I told them I'd been getting it since I was twelve, they practically grabbed my hand and ran out the door."

Jason had been disbelieving of them at first. He was always taught to stand up for his mother, and his pride wouldn't allow anyone shaming her.

But he caught Gerana and Juno yelling at each other one night, with the former screaming profanities at the latter. Before Jason could intervene, he was halted by Gerana's accusing words that _blamed_ Jason for some apparent pregnancy.

Before he had the chance to register the fact that he might be a _father_, Juno shooed her out the door, yelling threats at her.

The next day, he couldn't find a trace of Gerana. It was like she didn't exist.

He called his mother out on it because although he was raised to listen to her, he was also raised to never be stricken down by someone else. When Jason told his mother that, Juno actually _yelled_ at him.

Gerana never showed up again. Jason tried searching for her and looking through hospital records for a baby to be born under her name, but it never came up.

"I haven't _touched_ a woman since. No one. Piper, technically, but—" Jason chuckled and shook his head softly. "You know how that went. I'm allergic to her saliva."

"And other fluids," Nico grumbled into his shoulder. Jason suddenly laughed, and his body vibrated under Nico's cheek.

The next thing he knew, Piper and Leo dragged him across the country to San Francisco to get away from Juno. They weren't aware at the time that she _owned_ a chain of hospitals across the country. She sent him a pint of blood _wherever _he went, stalking _every single one_ of his moves.

That was part of why he wanted to be an astronaut, he reminded Nico as a random aside. Because Jason was _sure_ that Juno couldn't reach him in space.

"We met Reyna a few years later. She was turned by this other vampire, Octavian, and for a while we just tried hunting him down." Jason had an arm wrapped delicately around Nico's waist, while his hand was rubbing soothing circles in Nico's wrist bone. "Then, we were off to save the Other Realm for the next few years and get away from Juno for a while."

Only no matter what Jason did, he just _couldn't. _He had _gallons_ of blood sitting in Tristan McLean's house on the other side of the country that he couldn't just turn into a hospital because they would get suspicious.

Jason talked to Hera the Witch, who advised them on the next and possible locations of mythological beasts who needed to be slayed. (Apparently Jason helped slay at least one dragon while Leo befriended a baby one and named it Festus. Nico wasn't expecting him to delve into details—but he couldn't deny that look on Jason's face; the one that held temporary relief.)

Eventually Hera the Witch told Jason about the half-wolf, half-demon who co-led a pack of female-only werewolves in Quebec. The whole ordeal spun out of control and eventually, realizing the co-leader was his sister, Thalia, she welcomed him into her pack and they promised to never lose each other again.

"When I turned twenty-one back in July, it'd been over six years since I was home. Leo helped me when I needed blood—and when I didn't drink that, I drank the coconut milk." Jason smiled softly, guiltily, at the ground. "Piper and Leo told me not to go back. But I felt so _bad_ that I just ran away from home—and so I ran away from them. You found me before I found Juno, obviously."

"And four months later, here we are now," Nico concluded. He turned his head the slightest degree to bury his face in Jason's shoulder more deeply. "With me."

"With you," Jason breathed. He sucked in air, like everything left him when he wasn't looking, and arched his neck so that he could rest his head against Nico's. Fingers curled against Nico's, tingling. "I…I don't want to leave you."

Nico's heart ached in his chest. He hid his face in Jason's sleeve, knowing that if he caught Jason's eye, he'd start crying. Words fell out of his lips before he could keep them at bay.

"I want to leave her," Jason continued. He ran a hand down Nico's shoulder blades, caressing down the back at his palm, and then pulled it up so he was stroking Nico's back through the cardigan.

Again, Nico repeated the words, heart stuttering. He sucked in a hot breath of air, unable to believe his _luck_ to get someone so _sweet_ and _amazing_ and stupid here. Jason didn't want his pity. He knew that already. Every time Jason asked about his family and Nico admitted why they made him feel so insecure, Jason held him like this.

"What?" The hand on Nico's spine stopped for a brief second, and Nico quickly wanted to fold closer into his boyfriend.

"Take my blood," Nico said for the third time. He felt the fingers curl against his skin and watched Jason frown.

He didn't want to pity Jason. He wanted to _protect_ Jason—to be a pillar for Jason when everything else around them crumbled.

"You brought me here because you love me. And I know that I love you too. I do. I—I do." Words weren't enough, Nico thought wryly in his mind. He wanted Jason to _feel_ the bliss that was soaking his heart and flowing through his veins. "I trust you with my life."

"I don't want to hurt you again." Jason looked even more scared than he did during dinner. Nico wasn't sure how to process that—Juno exposed Jason's doubts and insecurities, but Nico brought out all the fears.

Jason was scared, too, Nico realized. Scared that Juno would get rid of Nico the way she got rid of Gerana.

"If you _do_, then we'll try. Again." Nico squeezed Jason's hand firmly and the edge of his lip curled in ill-timed amusement. Snort. "The first few times are always awkward."

A breathy laugh escaped Jason's lips. "I love you, Nico. With every fiber of my being."

"Same." Nico reached upward, clamoring to his knees, and pulled Jason into a full kiss. He could _feel _it—the sheer representation of his love and devotion shining through his own teeth and into Jason's mouth, and locked them together for eternity.

A small whine left Jason's lips, needy and eager to please in every meaning of the word. It pushed its way into Nico's mind, dizzying his thoughts with all of the affection in the world.

Hands furled under his shirt, readily grazing the surface of pale skin. Nico yelped in surprise, the icy touch mellowing his warm skin, before their flesh coaxed together and intertwined in one abstract entity. Jason choked back a blissful sigh before their kisses sucked them in, _urging_ each other closer so that Nico wasn't more than arm's length away.

_I'm here_, Nico thought, hoping that translated through their embrace_. I'm here, I'm staying, I'm never leaving, I'm—I want you. I love you. I—_"—love you. I-I _love_ you."

"Love you too," Jason murmured.

It was the first time that they parted, and Nico's body was desperate for air as it was for Jason pressed against him again. He panted, breathless, but felt utterly weightless.

"I love you more," Jason continued.

"Impossible," Nico grumbled. There was no way Jason loved him the same way Nico loved Jason. Jason could set fire to this building right now and Nico would still love him the same, so long as they were together.

He let out a breathy moan as Jason hands fell to the indent of his lower back and squeezed it firmly. Jason tugged on his sleeves and ripped the sweater away with one swift jerk. Then, with a mute thud, they fell onto the bed, Nico's body flat against the mattress.

Looking up through his dark bangs, he saw Jason's dimming eyes as they _burned_ his soul and he read the hearty desire and commitment that was left—spread like an open book. Nico's own gaze darted elsewhere as the heat fluttered up his neck and across his cheeks. He hadn't been this flustered with Jason, ever. Not even the first time.

Then the erection throbbing in his pants almost went without saying. He shivered, a gasp rattling from his mouth as Jason brazenly gripped it through his trousers. A moan left his lips for only a fraction of a second before Jason covered them with his own—and then it was all whimpers from there.

Another gasp breached Nico's throat, and his heart trembled this time as Jason's palm prodded him and kissed him, promising to never let him go.

Then out of nowhere it stopped altogether.

A throaty mewl stumbled out of Jason's lips, pitch wound in a deeper octave as he reached down and laced his hands around Nico's jawline. His body folded above Nico, same enrapturing hardness pressed tightly at Nico's own.

Quaking, Nico let a moan surface from the back of his throat before it died in his mouth, mind and body too sedated by euphoria.

The heat was tight in the pit of his stomach—so, _so_ tight. Jason's hot skin flushed red, finally saturated to the nth degree from Nico's unfulfilled appetite. He cried out again, one specific thrust against Jason's pants grinding in line with his cock and through the rest of his body, before matching the rhythm, hands clinging around Jason's wide frame and legs tangling with his much taller boyfriend.

Jason gasped with him, pulsating as he did so and fidgeting from the impromptu humping.

Curling his fingers around Jason's face, Nico reached up to kiss his boyfriend and cut off another moan—was denied. Jason changed the angle of his own head and licked the bare skin at the crook of Nico's neck.

"_Jason—" _White stars shot through Nico's vision and he nearly lost his mind as he keened again. He gasped, eyes squeezing shut as Jason pivoted his hips and rubbed his bulge against Nico's pants. Neither bothered to unclasp the buttons to place _skin_ on _skin—_because this was enough, amazing, and mindblowing, and—

_God_, Nico was so _close. _

The curve of his neck was lathered with wet kisses. Jason ran his lips smoothly down whatever skin he saw, teasing it and sucking on it, and mostly nestling on the corner where they knew Jason would be sinking his teeth into. He stretched out the pastel-colored v-neck, until all he could see was skin, and ran his mouth down the narrow arch.

"Close," Nico whispered, hands tugging and yanking Jason's shirt. "God, so _close—ah_…oh—god—"

Fangs sunk into his skin as soon as he came.

It was a faint burn, adding to the gusto in Nico's belly as his orgasm waned. His legs straightened, toes twisting with the heat in his veins going tepid. Jason suckled at the two-prong wound on Nico's neck, drawing out blood with a delectable moan with Nico's hands never leaving his sleeves.

Nico lazily traced the pattern of crescents he'd left on Jason's tanning biceps, and shivered.

A nose nuzzled his sensitive neck, and he sighed drowsily.

"Thank you," Jason said quietly.

"Stoppat…," Nico grumbled. Once he shut his eyes, he couldn't find the will to open them again. His vision was as fuzzy as his head, anyway, mixed with euphoria and immediate exhaustion. "A'ways…we'come."

Jason's voice, however, was vibrant and vivid. He chuckled. "You rest here. I'm going to tell Juno that we're leaving."

"She'gonnabe piss't…" Nico sluggishly jabbed a finger in the direction of the camera.

"Let her be." Jason ran a warm finger up Nico's ribs, earning a quiet shiver, and left a palm over Nico's heart.

"Werenot comin'back…?"

"We're not," Jason confirmed.

Struggling to open his eyes, Nico decided he didn't regret it. Even through all the blurriness in the corners of his eyes, he could see the relief and satisfaction on Jason's face that'd been missing through dinner. The only bad part he could find of this situation was that Nico wasn't as aware and awake as Jason was. That—and his sticky pants.

"Cleemme up."

"Okay."

As he rolled over to his side, the bruise on his neck tingled, reminding him that it was there. Nico squirmed until he felt Jason cradle his head into a pillow. After that, Jason chucked him a pair of silk pajama pants and forced him to change into something clean.

An _I love you _was murmured into his ear, sweet and serene, before Jason pressed one last kiss on his lips.

Then Nico was out like a light.

**-x-**


	6. Chapter 6

**-x-**

**Chapter VI**

**-x-**

When he woke up, Nico saw stars.

Not orgasmic white ones that made his toes curl and send the rest of his body to heaven—but real ones. Bright and beautiful on a dark alluring night, all shining through like tiny beacons lulling the world to sleep.

He shivered, suddenly remembering that New York winters were _not_ something you wanted to be in the middle of without a jacket, and curled close to Jason when the other offered his warmth. On further inspection, he realized he was covered in his aviator's jacket, but he decided he was _far_ better off with Jason's arm nestled tightly around him instead.

"Ho'long was I'sleep?" Nico grumbled. He shut his eyes and buried his face further into Jason's chest.

"A day or so." Jason chuckled. Warmth radiated off of him as his laughter filled Nico's ears, and the latter felt himself melt into goo.

The words sunk in, and Nico snorted. He laughed quietly into his boyfriend's oh-so comfortable abs, nose buried specifically against Jason's heart. "So you decided to dress me and take me out on a space date?"

"It was pretty close to Brookville," Jason explained. He reached into Nico's jacket beneath the hem and rested a heated hand against Nico's shoulder blades. "I mean—we're still in Brookville, but we're at a hotel."

_Hotel? _One eye peeped open. "Why are we at a hotel?"

Sure enough, they were laying on a picnic blanket on the rooftop of the Hyatt. Nico crinkled his nose, slowly picking himself up, and surveyed the area. His mind was still groggy, but the rest of him felt well-rested.

"It was a few miles up the road from the house," Jason explained. "I didn't want to take you home and have Hazel ask questions."

"So you decided on a temporary vacation two hours away from Manhattan?"

"Was that a bad idea?"

"Did I say that?" If Hazel thought it fitting to leave the country for a weekend, then Nico could spare a few days away from his apartment. Clearing out his throat, Nico sat in a more comfortable position and buried his knees beneath the jacket. He shivered, grateful when Jason pulled him close again, and looked around.

"Piper, Reyna, Leo, and Annabeth are resting in the hotel room," Jason explained without other prior clarification as to why they _were_ here. "The room was too small, so I figured you would want to wake up with the stars being the first thing you see."

"How'd you know I was going to wake up?"

"If you turned blue, I knew I was wrong."

Nico practically cackled. He tossed his head back in disbelief and laughed shrilly, unbelievably drained of all his energy for Brookville before all that energy went into reminding him how much he loved this guy. "What happened with Juno?"

"Dead."

Then he stopped laughing. Mouth shut, Nico cocked his head to his boyfriend and felt his jaw unhinge. "What…are the others doing here?"

Jason's gaze was at the ground, hands curling and uncurling across the plaid blanket before he nervously brought his knees to his stomach. "Turns out that she was Hera the Witch. And—she spent all this time monitoring me in and out of the Other Realm. Reyna had her suspicions, so the four of them had been trailing us since we left Manhattan."

"What—" Nico's thoughts stopped there. He leaned forward to catch Jason's sight—and learned quickly that this wasn't a joke. "You're—you're kidding, right?"

His boyfriend shook his head, clearly defeated. "We had to cut off her head so she would stop regenerating."

"_Regenerating._"

"Yeah."

"Like. A lizard and its tail."

"Sort of." Jason made gestures with his hands, most directed towards his own face. "Like—that's why she looked so good. Juno has a regeneration charm on her face to keep it looking youthful."

Twitch. "And you expect me to just believe this?"

"Witches change their appearances all the time." Jason observed his frowning boyfriend thoughtfully before adding, "You've seen movie specials, right?"

Nothing came to mind. "Yes?"

Again, Jason made a grandiose gesture with his hands, face reading along the lines of, _Well? _"Her head is in the freezer."

"_Her head is in the_—you expect me to believe that—she—_she's seventy-four_!" Nico's brain began its descent to craziness.

"Yeah. I mean—Frank came by and turned into an elephant just in time to save us. But it was a little touch and go for a while."

Nico's jaw tightened. He practically glowered at his boyfriend, mind having gone elsewhere. "You—you _expect_ me to believe that your _stepmother_ is some evil witch mentor and my sister's boyfriend is an elephant?"

"Animorph," Jason corrected, still oblivious. Relief fluttered in his eyes and he ran a hand down the side of Nico's face. With a soft sigh, he pulled Nico close and buried his face against that body. "I'm glad you're okay."

The relief was tangible. Nico could feel it, despite how utterly _hard_ it was to believe this conversation was actually happening. Piper as a siren, sure. Thalia as half-werewolf, half-demon—he could deal with that. _Frank_? That just—

"I…guess that explains why we've never been hit by the supernatural," Nico murmured. He reached up and tightened their hug. "Frank protects us. Right?"

"Yeah." The word came out solidly, but Jason was deteriorating into snickers.

Nico guffawed. He rolled his eyes and nudged his boyfriend. "You're kidding about Frank."

"I am." _Smack!_ "Ow!"

"Juno. She's…she's _dead_, though." The word felt awkward on his mouth. Nico didn't think that there would ever come a day where he could wrap his mind around the fact Piper was a siren yet not believe that this woman that he knew was _dead. _

"Yup."

"You're not lying?"

"Would I lie about something like this?" Jason sounded tired. Exasperated. At that moment Nico realized that beneath that loose black hoodie, Jason had bandages spiraling up his arm and through the shirt. Jason's knuckles were clearly bandaged up with several gashes hidden beneath them. It was shoddy taping, but it clearly got the job done.

And _none_ of those bandages were there before. When Nico moved, Jason groaned in pain.

"Are you…okay?" Juno and _dead_ didn't want to fit in the same sentence unless _wasn't_ was nestled between them. Nico _tried_ to believe it. He couldn't.

Jason's jaw tightened. He hugged his knees to his chest, hands clamped over his shins, and stared at the ground.

Nico remembered when Mom and Bianca died. The night before it happened, his mother sang him a lullaby the same way she did every night to help him to fall asleep. She told him that she loved him, placed two figurines on the shelf above his bed, and chided him for not cleaning up his room before bed. He promised he would do it in the morning.

Bianca had been a different case.

For the first nine years of his life, Bianca and he always shared a room. They had bunk beds by the time he was four, but when she turned ten to his eight, she wanted her bed to be on the other end of the room. It hadn't been a big deal at first—Nico had the top bunk, but now he was closer to the ground.

When Bianca turned twelve, she asked if she could have her own room. And Nico had been mad. She told him that since she was in middle school now and that he was ten, Nico could take care of himself. That he didn't _need _her, and that Nico could be by himself for a while.

But he _did_ need her and Nico didn't think he _could_ ever live without his sister.

Then they both died.

Nico never got the chance to tell her why he was mad that she moved out of their room. He spent two weeks in bed just sleeping, dreaming, and having nightmares about the wreck. Mom and Bianca been buried together. Up to that point he was waiting for them to jump out of their coffins and tell him it was all a joke. But it wasn't.

Every morning, he expected Mama to come through the door and wake him up so he wouldn't be late for school. On rainy days, he would be in the living room, waiting to hear Bianca's footsteps up the hall before she asked him to play with her.

Thanatos caught him trying to drag Bianca's bed back into his room, so he could pretend that she was still in there. Hades didn't want to deal with it. He sent Nico to therapy for two years so there was someone for his son, just not him.

It took Nico all that time to get over it. Sometimes when he fell sick he still expected for Mom to show up and sing him to sleep or waited for Bianca to grab a book from his shelf and read to him.

So he didn't understand why Jason was so calm. His hands twitched.

Jason sat there with his legs to his chest and face pulled in the most eerie poker face Nico'd ever seen. It reminded him of Juno. Finally, a quiet chuckle fell from Jason's lips, distorted and askew in the most disturbing way. "Is it wrong that I miss her?"

Nico's own breath stopped short. He wasn't sure what to say.

"I want your honest opinion." Jason's hands coaxed Nico close, head bowing until his nose met the bruised spot on Nico's neck. It made Nico whimper, overly sensitive and irritated at the same time. "She knew we were together. Before we went to my room."

It hit Nico fast. He peeled away to look at Jason's face and found it twisted with conflict and denial. Nico's jaw tightened and all the pent up anger from that dinner party came rushing back. _Calm thoughts_, he told himself. Calm thoughts. Exploding in Jason's face was not the intention here. "That…was why the lights were turned up so high during dinner. Why she didn't turn them down. She was trying to beat it out of you."

Jason nodded carefully in confirmation and chewed on his bottom lip. "We should have tried harder to hide it."

"She can't do that to you," Nico snapped, hands thrown in the air. He shivered, cold wind hitting him once more, and buttoned up his aviator's jacket. Nico was mad. Flying to his feet, Nico paced back and forth in their tiny alcove and felt livid. "There isn't any _we should have tried harder _to it, Jason! She—she didn't _let_ you try! She was willing to _kill_ you to prove a point!"

"She's just—a little conservative," Jason countered. He grimaced as the words left his mouth and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"She could have _killed_ you."

"Yeah, well, she didn't."

"Because I _saved_ you! I have the mark on my neck to prove it!" Without thinking, Nico dragged his collar down his shoulder and jabbed a finger at the purple and black bruise. "You did it with it my consent, and I _love_ you! What _she_ did to you was—was—"

"It saved me too," Jason finished for him, but they both knew that wasn't the answer Nico was looking for. Instead, he slackened against the picnic table and folded his hands across his legs. "It was wrong, immoral, and there were _several_ women—but she did it out of love."

"She did it out of _power._ She told you to _do this or I won't love you anymore, _and you did it out of fear!" Nico's hands curled into fists and he raised his voice. But when he held his head high to emphasize his point, he found that Jason was glaring at the ground.

This wasn't supposed to be an argument. Was it?

Blue eyes were dark, with only the moon glowing above them. Jason hugged his legs to his chest, lips pressed together tightly so that nothing ill-said could accidentally slip out. He opened his mouth, careful, before it fell close again. Then, "I…just want someone to tell me that it wasn't all bad."

Of course he did. Nico's pulse calmed after that, but he still felt unsettled. His hands trembled with the rage that wasn't flooding out of his lips, feet planted stiffly against the ground, and the longer he dwelled on the situation, the more it hurt his head. If they really _were_ here—then Piper, Reyna, and Leo were all probably standing on the same side that Nico was. That was why Jason needed someone to tell him that it wasn't _all_ bad.

This was how Jason was trying to ride the wave of shock. Not by Juno making a surprise visit on the rooftop, but analyzing every bit of their relationship as mother and son.

Hades didn't always feel like a father to Nico. "Dad" worked at the studio for the most part and pampered his wife, while his children were always secondary. Or—_tertiary. _By the time Nico turned thirteen, he stopped referring to his father as _Dad_ in his head and called him by his name. It rolled so perfectly off his tongue because most of the times his father just felt like a man he spent sixteen years sitting across a dining room table from that told him he would always be inferior to his sister.

After Bianca and Mom died, and Marie and Hazel entered their lives, Hades spent the following years up until Marie's death being a decent human being. Nico was _grateful_ for it. He could _see_ his father, notice the _regret_ in his eyes, and knew that they both wanted a better relationship.

Once Hades began dating Persephone, everything that he hated about his father came up all over again. Hades chose Persephone over his own two kids.

And…that_—_confused him. He didn't hate Hades because his father treating Nico like he was second-best wasn't ever a surprise. But he didn't love Hades either because Hades was a terrible father who barely remembered Hazel and he existed.

Juno—or Hera the Witch, or whatever her name was supposed to be—was a woman who never let Jason leave her sight from the day he came into her custody. She took him away from school and prevented him from having friends so that he never got curious.

She coerced him to sleep with women nearly _three times his _age and _suck their blood_ because she had the power to, like she was tainting all of these women who slept with her idiot of a husband.

She _stalked_ him as Hera and earned his trust when he thought he finally found independence, and tried to get him to kill his own _sister_, and sent him bags of _blood_ when he didn't come home right away.

She nearly killed him at the dinner party tonight when he was trying to be on his utmost behavior and keep her happy. Jason spent _years_ afraid of her when he found out that she wasn't the great mother he thought she was, and churned in his own _guilt_ because he _failed_ her by never coming home.

But she was also his mother, who took care of him since the age of two. She never let him run out of a steady blood supply, never let him die or fall sick, and provided him with _everything_ he ever wanted, so long as he remained by her side. She was the first person he ever loved because she loved him so much, and probably tucked him in bed, showered him in kisses, and took him out to play—even if it was just for her own personal gain.

Nico could hear Jason working out technicalities in his mind, followed by a string of denial and self-assurance that Juno was a bad woman, or that she was a good one. He hated his own father because he could never measure up to Hades's expectations, but missed the man who was in love with his two mothers and could actually be proud of him for three whole seconds.

"I want to have a funeral for her," Jason murmured quietly. "And a memorial service. That way her co-workers can mourn too."

The decision was firm. Nico knew he couldn't argue with it. He sighed in defeat, eyes squeezing shut and frustration disappearing with it. Curling his hands against his chinos, Nico bowed his head. "We can say that she died of old age."

Another silence quelled them. Nico breathed out hard, realizing he was exhausted all over again. When he peered up through his bangs, Jason's weary smile was the first thing he saw.

"I…" Nico swallowed hard, but it all came back, waiting for him to lurch. "I don't know where to go from here."

Jason sighed. He stretched out his back, minding his wounds carefully, and settled against the picnic blanket.

Hesitating, Nico slowly crawled back onto the shallow cloth and sat with his ankles crossed beside his boyfriend.

"I can set up a meeting with my father for this Monday. That way we can figure out what to do with the severed head and how to reattach it if we're going to have an open-casket funeral."

"I don't think you want to have an open casket." Nico fidgeted before he reached for Jason's hand. Jason graciously took it and the warmth fluttered through, butterflies and all. "Jupiter isn't…you know?"

"He's a real old man. No funny business." Jason smiled quietly and smoothed out the hair over his eyes. "He apologized for all the years that he let Juno have me instead of my real mother. Tonight…it was like Juno took every fight and all the anger she had for him in the past fifty years come out and used it as a weapon to destroy my father."

"I'm surprised she didn't before," Nico said. He paled, hands suddenly shaking from the thought of how powerful Juno really was. Looking at Jason now, Nico _knew_ that woman almost killed his boyfriend. She had no mercy for those who disobeyed her. "No offense."

"None taken."

"And the kids?" Not that they were really kids. Jason was the youngest in the family, and he was twenty-one.

"Most of them gone. They left by the time you and I were done in my room. Mercury to his company; Minerva home to get some rest; Hephaestus back at his workshop. Herk left when he realized he could get away with it." A grimmer smile curled over Jason's lips and he tightened his grip over Nico's hand. "They couldn't have cared less."

_God_.

Of all the fucked up things in Nico's life, having Bianca and Hazel take care of him was not one of them. They were _the_ best things for him and Nico knew he would never trade his memories of either sister for anything else. He knew that was what Jason was to Thalia and vice versa.

"What about Apollo and Diana?" Nico laced their fingers together and leaned into Jason's heat. His eyebrows furrowed together and he finally took the story in, feeling nauseated. "Did she try to kill me too?"

"They went back to the Other Realm. Apparently Diana's this magical witch hunter. Just the bad ones though, like the Wicked Witch. Her girlfriend, Zoe, is like Glinda."

Nico scrunched his nose and grimaced. "Please tell me you just want to watch _Wizard of Oz_ really badly."

"I do, but she really _is_ a hunter." Jason patted Nico on the back gently when he realized the latter was twitching uncontrollably. "You missed a lot."

"Clearly."

"I'll take you to the Other Realm the next time she invites me to kick butt with her," Jason promised. He studied Nico's face, realizing that his much shorter boyfriend was actually trembling with irregular nerves.

Those eyes watched Nico until Nico could will himself to look up, and he found himself at the end of one suckling kiss. Jason pressed his good palm behind Nico's crown and nipped lightly at Nico's mouth. Once they pulled away, he breathed in what he could of Nico before pulling the latter in his lap. Hands settled around Nico's torso, curled contently on top of his stomach. He complied, his own hands clasped over the other's, and shut his eyes.

"I'd never let her take you," Jason murmured quietly at his ear. "You're too important."

"You…?"

"I ran to get you, and Piper and Leo were already in the room," Jason assured. He stroked parts of Nico's hand with his thumb and pressed his lips to the shell of the latter's ear. "Reyna made Annabeth take you, hotwired the Maserati, and you were out of there before there was any beheading."

"You should have woken me up." Nico turned so he could bury his face in the crook of Jason's neck. "I could have helped."

"It was dangerous," Jason murmured back without hesitation. He ran his hand down Nico's spine, pushing it beneath the jacket and v-neck so he could rest his palm flat against Nico's back.

In return, Nico stretched out Jason's signature black hoodie and placed his cheek against all the warmth that he could get. He liked it when Jason was like this. The cold was dull and just there, but there was something about knowing Jason was alive and being able to hear his heartbeat that soothed Nico to sleep on his worst nights.

"You wouldn't have woken up, anyway. Leo's used to the bloodsucking. You and I've only done it twice now," Jason said. He curled his hand into a fist and brushed his bare knuckles against the other boy.

A pleasant hum caroled from Nico's lips. "I'm going to get a tongue ring."

"Oh?" Jason chuckled and returned to stroking his boyfriend's back.

"It's going to be silver. I'm assuming you're allergic to silver." Murmuring the words against Jason's neck, Nico yawned and shut his eyes. "Vampires hate silver, right?"

"Yes." Jason laughed quietly and kissed him. "Is it because I told you Frank could shapeshift?"

"It's because you nearly _died_ and didn't bother to rouse me. That hurts." Nico's hand was a death grip over Jason's. He knew it was. Still, he sat there, perfectly content in Jason's lap and curling against him like a lock and key. "Don't do that again."

"I'm sorry," Jason murmured. "I won't do it again. I promise." He slowly peeled his hand away from Nico's back and used it to support his boyfriend over his legs.

They weren't going to be moving for a while. Good.

Jason tittered beside Nico, face buried happily in his hair. "Death by your mouth. I like that."

"You would." All was well, Nico supposed. He didn't think he was out of his mind for not feeling immediate relief and harmony. After all—his boyfriend's family was full of nutjobs, his boyfriend was a half-demon with a manipulative mother who was out to kill Nico because—well, _boyfriends_—and now she was dead.

He clicked his tongue. Nico supposed in comparison, their families shared mutual oddities.

Another thought crossed his mind. "Jason?"

"Yeah?"

"What about Ares?"

Beside him, Nico heard Jason gulp. "He's gone."

"What do you mean he's—"

"He just is." Jason hesitated. "Juno pulled him aside to talk to him while we were gone and—she came back. He didn't."

A cold chill ran up Nico's spine and he shivered, curling against Jason.

"I wanna change my name," Jason continued. He stroked Nico again with his good hand and sighed softly. "To what my mother named me. Jason Alexander Grace. Not Jason Maximus."

"You sound less like a knight in shining armor and more like a human being."

"Am I still your Prince Charming?"

Heat burned in Nico's cheeks. He bit the inside of his mouth and played with the strings of Jason's hoodie. "Am I yours?"

A wet kiss was placed at the corner of his lip. Jason fell back until they were both against the blanket and nestled Nico tightly against him so they fit perfectly together. "Always."

Nico hid his face in Jason's arm, embarrassed of what Jason might say if he saw just how badly Nico was blushing. Jason always made his heart soar. "I like Jason Grace."

"He likes you too," Jason assured. He was promptly smacked, and then laughed. It trailed off into the abyss. Jason's thoughtful silence followed. "Is it okay if I stay with you?"

Snort. "I'd like to move eventually so we—I—don't get frostbite."

"No. I mean…here. With you." Jason frowned at the air and cursed to himself. "_With you_, not just here. Emotionally. And physically. Just—not physically here. Everywhere."

Uh… Nico blinked. He pushed himself into a sitting position and arched an eyebrow.

Drawing in another frustrated breath, Jason massaged his temples and made a face. He flushed red, eyes rising so that they locked gazes, and slowly curled a hand into his boyfriend's. "I came to New York to see my stepmother. And—I didn't know how long I would be staying. But. I don't think I want to leave. And I want to stay with you. I don't want there to be anyone else—just you. And me. Together."

_Oh_. Nico's chest felt light, heart so high in bliss that he didn't want to come down. He squeezed Jason's hand firmly, choking on a breath as his mind tried to search for words to say. The _perfect_ words, because there was no other way to talk to Jason.

"Isn't—?" he paused, realizing he'd tripped over those thoughts and they were now gravelly in his throat. "Wasn't that obvious?"

Jason beamed. His face flushed red and it was his turn to duck away so that Nico wouldn't see the glow in his cheeks. "Yeah."

"Yeah," Nico echoed quietly. He exhaled, letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding, and the relief flooded through him. His heart was lost on flight, but his mind was focused on Jason. On his boyfriend.

The wind gusted by them again, dancing beside Nico's locks of hair and whispering melodies as sweet as Jason's voice into his ears. The sky was perfect. The stars illuminated beautifully, and Nico knew that for the first time they both felt as liberated as the darkness and light entwined above them.

"I love you," Jason whispered.

Nico squeezed Jason's hand tenderly. "Looks like we get that second first date after all."

A chuckle left Jason's lips, making Nico tingle everywhere. "Sorry that I'm three months late."

"You also dragged my unconscious body to the top floor of the Hyatt and put me at risk for hypothermia." Snort. "Very romantic."

Another laugh bubbled from the back of Jason's throat, and it was beautiful. "I did _propose_. You said yes, remember?"

"I like to cool down before Christmas."

"Naturally." Jason's chuckles dissolved into a sigh. "Nico?"

"Yeah?" Once more, Nico squeezed Jason's hand as the fear was apparent.

"I'm sorry." Jason's voice dropped below a whisper. He raised his head to lock eyes with Nico, and the sheen of unfallen tears glistened beneath the starlight. Neither pointed them out because Jason didn't want to cry, and Nico didn't want to sit there and watch the love of his love break down against his will. "And thank you."

Nico's heart throbbed. He watched Jason, vision locked for eternity to the eyes across from his—those beautiful, thoughtful, sensitive, and powerful eyes—and knew that he would never want to look away. With a swift tug, he pulled Jason's hand toward him and pressed a kiss against those knuckles. "You're welcome."

A smile graced Jason's lips.

And everything was perfect.

**-x-**

Hazel was waiting in his room when Nico and Jason finally got home. She stood to her feet, hands still fiddling with each other, until she made eye contact with Nico. Then she froze. A frown fell over Hazel's face and she examined Nico's cardigan wearing, chino-decorated self.

"Jason says I need to keep the pants for job interviews. I'm not allowed to say no." Rolling his eyes, Nico did the opposite of his tone and affectionately fell closer to his boyfriend. From the Hyatt back to Manhattan, neither willing to part from each other for even a second.

"Good idea." Hazel's voice was soft. She smiled weakly to them, clearly exhausted. Nico wondered how long she'd been waiting. Slowly, she tried forward, and then stopped. Her face twisted with uncertainty.

The hand enveloping Nico's gave him a firm squeeze. Jason kissed his cheek softly before they both reluctantly pulled apart from each other. A smile curled against Jason's lips. "I'll make a late dinner for us."

"Okay." Nico didn't want to leave Jason, but Hazel was more important.

As Jason left, Nico let Hazel take him by the other hand and gestured for them to sit on the bed. By their standards, neither of them should've been exhausted for the night. But Nico had a migraine trying to wrap his mind around the whole ordeal and Hazel looked like she'd been pacing back and forth trying to sort out her priorities.

"What's wrong?" They hadn't held hands like this since they were fourteen. Nico stuck by Hazel's side like glue after her mother died because he knew exactly how she would feel afterwards. Even today, Nico felt like Hazel adjusted better than he ever would.

"Nothing's wrong," Hazel murmured softly. She broke into a tiny smile, gaze still locked on the ground, before fidgeting. Choking on a breath, Hazel's gaze glistened with tears.

"Hazel—"

"Frank proposed."

Nico's eyes widened in surprise. When he looked back to Hazel, he realized those weren't sad tears—but tears of joy. His sister was shaking with excitement and sadness, but mostly the former. He cracked a smile across his lips and stroked her back. "That's—that's good, right? That's _amazing_, Hazel."

A sigh left Hazel's lips. She shivered and leaned into Nico's warmth when he offered an arm. "He wants to move back to Canada."

Oh.

"His grandmother. She's getting worse, and—he doesn't want to be away from her. And she's already said he's inheriting the house since he's her only grandchild. He doesn't want to sell it and I could never _make_ him sell it. But—"

"But…?" Nico wrapped his arm securely around her and squeezed Hazel tightly. His heart throbbed, swelling with every lung-crippling emotion that wanted to _beg_ Hazel to stay here.

He quickly silenced them.

"I know that in a few years you'll be worrying about MCATs and getting into a good medical school." Hazel chewed on her lip. "And I can't ask you to leave in the middle of things. But I—I don't—I couldn't—"

Hazel sighed sharply as she realized the words weren't willing to come out. Nico pulled her even closer and quietly assured her it was okay.

"I don't think I could leave you," she whispered.

_Good_, said the voice in the back of Nico's head. _Shut up_, he snapped at it. Without forethought, Nico reached out and curled his fingers over her knuckles. "Do you want to marry Frank?"

Hazel's dream was to be an equestrian. He didn't know how many ranches there were in Canada, but he knew Frank would be supportive of anything she did. Hazel nodded, albeit hesitantly.

With a sigh of his own, Nico peeled back and bit his lip. The words _don't go_ were yanking back the inside of his throat, begging to be heard and hoping Hazel would hear it all. "Then don't doubt him because you're worried about me. I'll be fine."

He knew for a long time already that Frank and Hazel would be getting married. It never occurred to Nico where he would be in his life at that point, but that was because Hazel's best interest was always at heart before his own. Nico's chest ached at the realization that they wouldn't be together forever.

(That was what Jason was for, he told himself. Jason knew what it was like to have someone reel you back and make you never say a word because you loved them too much to hurt them. Nico didn't want that relationship with Hazel _or_ Jason.)

"Have you planned anything?" Nico brushed a coil of hair away from Hazel's eyes.

"I haven't even said yes yet."

"What?" Nico chuckled. Poor Frank. "Why not?"

Golden yellow eyes peered upward through the fringe of dark hair.. Hazel shrugged pathetically.

"You and I have been together since your—_our_ mother died. You've been my pillar for Bianca and my mother. And you know I will _always_ be there for you." Nico's voice fell softly and he leaned into her. "Frank is better than me. Better for you—"

"No one is better for me than you," she protested. Hazel nudged him lightly, trying to keep her emotions steady, but Nico knew she was both smiling and trying to keep her tears from falling. "You're my brother."

"And Frank is someone who wants to spend the rest of his life with you." Nico kissed her hair softly. "I know that's what you want, too."

She sighed into his shoulder, throat constricted and voice faint.

Nico wondered if he would've been this complacent back when he was fifteen before he came out to his sister and after Marie Levesque committed suicide. He knew the decision would've been hard. But ultimately, all Nico cared about was Hazel feeling happy Nico wanted what they had. He wanted to be with someone that could make him feel like he did the first time they said _I Love You_ to each other. "I think Frank is good for you."

A sigh of relief left Hazel's lips. She smiled tearfully and rested her head on his shoulder. "I should talk to him."

"Is he in your room?"

"He's still in Canada. Frank proposed before he left and gave me the weekend to think about it."

Nico counted his days. Sure enough, it was Saturday. Jason and he had gone to the dinner party on Friday night and he'd been out since. He tapped his chin and checked his watch. 2AM. "He might be asleep."

"Shouldn't be a problem." Hazel grinned devilishly. She stood to her feet and started for the door. Then stopped. Hazel turned around slowly and smiled at him hopefully. "Will you give me away?"

"At the wedding?" Nico arched an eyebrow. His chest tingled and he couldn't help his coy smile. "Me? Not Dad?"

"Yeah." Hazel fell into a steady silence before she nodded again. She smiled. "I want you to be the one to lead me through the doors of a new life."

"How poetic."

"Uhuh." Hazel flounced across the room and pulled Nico into a quick hug. He hugged back and heard her breathe against his neck. "Thank you."

"Always." Nico kissed her softly on the cheek once more and watched her leave. They still had months before the semester was over, or when Hazel and Frank planned the wedding. He didn't want to think about how much he would miss her until then—but Nico knew he would bawl once that day approached.

It was for the best. The weaseling voice in the back of his head agreed.

Slowly, the door creaked open again. Jason popped his head through, tentatively taking in the situation. A smile adorned his face and he locked gazes with his boyfriend. "May I…?"

"Do you even have to ask?" Nico snorted before chucking off his pants. Turning around, he realized Jason was watching his every move with those beautiful blue eyes. A smirk curled against Nico's lips. "You like what you see?"

"I have dinner." Jason stumbled into the room with a plate of a grilled PB&J sandwich.

"How romantic." Snort. With a shake of his head, Nico decided he couldn't deny himself of his piercings any longer and proceeded to put every single one of them back in place before he hung up his jacket and made preparations to burn both v-neck and cardigan.

A small moan left his lips as Jason hugged him from behind, large arms coating him like a suit of armor. Nico decided he liked it like that: every emotion and feeling to be protected by Jason's embrace. He sighed into it and—found a sandwich shoved into his mouth.

"Oh my—"

"She okay?" Jason whispered.

Taking the sandwich in hand, Nico promptly downed all of it before nodding. "Frank proposed."

"Really?" Jason unlatched himself from Nico immediately. He grinned at his boyfriend in disbelief. It faded, when Jason realized Nico wasn't smiling back.

"She was worried about leaving me," he confessed. Nico twitched. "But I told her that I'd be fine. I have you. And Piper, Leo, and the rest of the guys."

"Oh." The demeanor over Jason's face slackened and he kept a tight hold over Nico's shoulders. The gesture was soft and kind, easing Nico out of every other depressed thought he had for the night. "You gonna be okay?"

No. Nico shrugged. He stared at the ground and chucked off his shoes. He didn't want to say anything that would upset Hazel any further. Nico knew that moving in with Frank was one of the most nerve-wracking decisions that she would ever make, but she would be more upset that Nico pleaded for her to stay than to move away from her brother. Nico never wanted Hazel to feel like her own desires and needs were nothing if it didn't involve him. "Hold me?"

Jason did so without second thought and buried his nose in Nico's shoulder. Nico breathed in, sucking in as much of Jason's scent as he could so it could sedate him, and let his tall boyfriend rock him gently right there. Jason sighed.

"Jason," Nico murmured quietly.

"Yeah?" His lips vibrated against Nico's neck and the latter shivered.

"If…you ever fall in love with someone else—"

"I won't."

"But if you do, then don't stay with me." Nico reached behind him, elbow jutted out as he pressed his palm into Jason's back and pushed his boyfriend closer. "You'll just hurt me if you stay. I want you to be happy."

Silence followed. Jason chose not to follow that thought and instead squeezed Nico more tightly until Nico could no longer breathe under the grip. (And Nico didn't care—he wanted to be close to Jason and this was what calmed him down.) Exhaling, the warmth traveled against Nico's collar bone and Jason kissed the corner of the shorter's jaw. "Okay. But I won't."

"Off chance, then," Nico whispered. He slowly maneuvered his feet until they stood parallel, and reached up to lock lips.

A pleasant hum left Jason's mouth and he dragged Nico to the bed until they were both sitting on the mattress. A smile curled against his lips, big and bright and vivid.

Nico smiled back shyly. He laughed and hid his face because Jason's smile only widened. "What do we do now?"

Jason rolled onto his back and shrugged. There wasn't a lot of space on Nico's bed—not that there ever was. Jason chose to use that to his advantage and nestle Nico tightly in his arms before staring at the ceiling fan. "I can talk to my dad to get my proof of birth and then get my name changed. Then…?"

The last part sounded like a question. Nico craned his neck. "Then?"

To his surprise, Jason looked nervous. A smile curled against his lips, bashful, and he crossed his arms over his chest before Nico reached out to tug on his pointer. "Maybe look up the registration process for college?"

Oh. Nico blinked. He cracked a grin of his own, scooting closer to his boyfriend, and lay on top of his chest. "Really?"

"Yeah." Jason nodded timidly, his eyes making contact with Jason's own before they trailed elsewhere. "I just…I think I wanna try the aerospace program."

There wasn't a word to describe how nervous Jason looked. Hope also glowed in his gaze, along with a splatter of anxiety as he waited for Nico's response. It took a moment before Nico realized that it wasn't a response Jason was waiting for—but _approval. _Nico kissed him softly. "I'll help you find all the forms."

"You're not mad?" Jason asked hopefully.

"Never," Nico murmured. He clasped his hands around Jason's cheeks and gave him a full kiss.

Jason fell on top of Nico perfectly and burrowed under Nico's torso. He chuckled as Nico's words met his ears. "Never?"

"Sometimes." Nico thought about it.

"Sometimes," Jason repeated.

"What kind of answer are you looking for?" Rolling his eyes, Nico pressed his cheek flatly against Jason's chest.

"Anything," his boyfriend said. "I just like hearing your voice."

"Mm." Twisting, Nico pressed his head against the blonde's chest and melted as Jason kissed him. He sighed, lulling into sleep as Jason's pulse beat against his ear. "Someone has to turn the lights off."

"Is that someone me?"

"Last one up. So…yes?"

"We fell down together."

"I'll follow you then."

"Okay." Sure enough, both boys rose to their feet. Nico toddled after his boyfriend, polo bunched up in his fist like a three-year-old, and a minute later found them in the same position. Jason was stripped of those ugly khakis and had sweatpants in their place. With a quiet breath, Nico buried his face in Jason's chest and felt hands softly stroke his back beneath his t-shirt.

"Nico?" Jason's voice was soft, falling in step with Nico's heart.

"Yeah?"

"Love you."

Nico flushed and smiled against Jason's arm. His heart sung. "Love you too."

A faint thought scraped the back of his mind. Nico thought about Hazel and Frank, and then him and Jason. He wondered if Juno ever let made Jason happy—not just by convincing him he _was_—but truly, ultimately happy. If Juno ever allowed Jason to feel truly part of a family and give him memories that weren't just filled with discipline and shame.

Through all the silence, Nico heard his phone echo as it buzzed with texts. He reached out, wriggling carefully around Jason's grasp.

**Leo V.: **fell asleep, brobro. Jay w/ u?

**Leo V: **Piper says u better play nice

**Leo V: **jk that was me

**Leo V: **since ur not here we can have ur mattress rite

**Leo V: **I think pipeynabeth are ladyhumping

**Leo V: **yeah i heard a moan help

**Leo V: **HEHLP

**Leo V: **If Jason wakes up in the middle of the night, don't let him be alone. He might do something stupid.

Nico twitched. It was the only coherent message through the throng of Leo's insanity. A second passed, texting paused, before another storm of them spammed his phone.

**Leo V: **y did u leave us we broke man

**Leo V: **wait piper is taking the

**Leo V: **Good night, Nico.

**Leo V: **Reyna says hi.

**Leo V: **Leo's right though. Call us, even if he thinks he doesn't need us.

"Come back," Jason grumbled.

"Coming." Taking peace at the last of the flurry of texts, Nico shoved his phone on the other side of his nightstand.

The stars glowed in Jason's eyes, bluish hue as vivid as space before they closed for the final time that night. Even through the darkness, Nico knew Jason had fallen asleep with a smile over is lips. Reaching out by only an inch, Nico pressed a kiss to his beloved boyfriend's forehead. Jason muttered something softly and clinched an arm more tightly around Nico.

No, Nico decided. Juno didn't even _compare_ to what Jason had now.


	7. Epilogue

**-x-**

**Epilogue**

**-x-**

"Is that the last box?" Nico asked. He scratched the back of his head and grimaced. His undercut had gotten far too long over the summer. Nico would have to trim it soon so it didn't look as haggard as it did when he was a teenager.

On cue, Jason walked past him with the supposed last box in hand and brushed the fringe sitting below Nico's ear.

Nico batted his hand away. "Stop that."

"I like it." A grin curled against Jason's face and he freed himself of any luggage before shamelessly caressing one of Nico's cheeks. Nico shivered—Jason's flesh was getting cold again. They would have to have a bloodsucking session once Jason came back from work. "Why don't you think about growing it out?"

"I'll look like a baby."

"But you're _my_ baby." Jason tipped the cap that he was wearing.

"If you really want a dog, then _I _don't want to be the one with a pet name," Nico grumbled. He rolled his eyes and pushed the box toward an IKEA couch that Jupiter had bought them earlier.

He didn't need to turn around to see Jason jumping up and down with excitement. "I wanna get a hellhound. We can name it Sparky."

"How big?" Nico fell to his knees and unpacked the box. The top of it was marked with the word **FRAGILE **and it was filled with several plants that his new stepmom deemed worthy as housewarming presents. The wedding was at the end of April, at the precipice before May where the flowers were still vibrant with spring fever but were soaking in the new summer sun. (Those were Persephone's exact words. Nico was ready to kill himself.)

"Like, adult Tibetan Mastiff. Only those are the puppies." Jason helped him unload the plants. Nico tutted him strictly when his boyfriend didn't bother to set them by the window. "I know a ghoul who's willing to give us a good deal on its litter."

"It?"

"Ghouls don't follow human genders. Too many decisions."

"Ah." By now, Nico refused to let anything about the Other Realm fly over his head. He rubbed out the headache in his temples before it could appear and searched for the box that had the gold-plated watering can Persephone gave them along with the begonias.

"Those are pretty." Jason smiled adoringly and took them out of Nico's hands.

Who tried not to laugh. He shook his head in disbelief and smiled coyly at his boyfriend. "Do you know what those are?"

"Pretty flowers?"

"Begonias. Do you know what they mean?" Nico's lips curled into a dark smirk before unloading them on the window behind the kitchen sink. "As in, 'if you screw up my marriage, I will hunt you down and kill you.'"

Jason made a sound. Not a pleasant one. "But she was so _nice._"

"That's why _these_ are for you." The marigolds were much more vibrant than Nico's begonias. Each flower was as bright as the summer sun, reminding Nico way too much of Apollo. "These represent the sun."

"Pretty," his lover said again, this time with more caution. Jason pulled the bouquet into his hands and admired it before setting it in a too-expensive vase that Jupiter also bought for them.

It was almost a year now since the dinner party with Jason's family. Jupiter came around and was entirely supportive of Jason's decisions and life choices—even smiling at him in a way that always made Jason leave the room trembling with emotions and careful glee. Nico'd been in the room before when father and son had their discussions. Jupiter was stern and expected a lot, but he was nowhere near as bad as Juno was.

Once Jupiter learned that his son would be moving in with Nico, he whipped out the platinum card and insisted they spend as much money as they wished. Nico and Jason weren't gaudy people. They settled on modest furniture—before running into _the_ Apollo Archer. Jason's brain surgeon brother dragged them to Pier1 and argued with them for two hours on why a leopard-printed loveseat was _exactly_ what they needed in their new apartment.

Apollo, Diana, and the rest of Jason's family were surprisingly complacent about everything. Nico was shocked that no one aside from Jupiter and Jason showed up to mourn Juno. Jason held back his tears when his stepmother was buried, and Nico did nothing more than squeeze Jason's hand because he knew Jason didn't want to cry.

The bad news was that Nico now had a regular sleep schedule. He felt like an old man, being asleep by 2am and waking up at 7am (on his best nights.) Jason didn't let it show, but Nico knew that at night, Jason would pretend he was asleep and lay still in bed for hours just lost in his thoughts.

Nico refused to let it bother him. He didn't know how to comfort Jason other than to shower him with the proper love and affection that Jason should have gotten instead of years of manipulation and hypocrisy. It helped—he knew that it did—but Jason wasn't going to tell him anything.

Maybe having a puppy would help, he thought quaintly. Jason needed something to get his mind off of things.

Sleep schedule aside, Jason apparently appreciated the aspect of morning wood and cuddles before going off to work while Nico was in class. Jason liked the breakfast food so much at McDonald's that he picked up a job and all of the morning and afternoon shifts that he could.

(Nico thought it was weird, but he appreciated the discounts he got on Chicken McNuggets.)

Jason had the grades and intelligence to get into a great university and was passionate about the aerospace engineering program his new school offered. They settled on an apartment that gave both of them an equal commuting time and they worked out their schedules to see each other at least once a day. The school and training would be rough, but Jason was almost as excited about space as he was about getting Sparky.

The next few years would be busy. A small crack in the back of Nico's mind left insecurities flowing through, wondering if their plans would work out and they'd have time for each other. Jason didn't think a reality existed where they weren't together and Nico was too stubborn to let those thoughts get to him.

Hades and Jupiter actually _knew_ each other. They were fraternity brothers—and Nico nearly had a conniption when he found out. For most of summer break when Jason and he, along with Hazel and Frank, went back to LA, Nico stalked his father and Jason constantly reassured him that there was no way Hades was a werewolf, mummy, ghoul, vampire, or—_especially not_—an alien.

Two weeks with Nico's overbearing family was complete hell. Hades begrudgingly gave them his blessing (despite some bitter resentment he had with Jupiter), Persephone spent every day teasing and flirting with Frank and Jason, and eventually Thanatos realized they were super tired and dragged them to Disneyland. (Frank had sputtered and Jason had made weird "we didn't do anything" hand gestures, but they didn't understand that even without the flirting, Persephone always put Hazel and Nico in a bad mood.)

The door unceremoniously flung open with Reyna, Annabeth, Mitchell, Leo, and Piper trotting through, six-pack in hand per person.

"Nice place!" Leo shouted. He plopped onto the IKEA non-leopard print loveseat and grinned devilishly. "We get to have a house warming drinking party, right?"

Nico rolled his eyes. "If you help unpack, maybe."

"Pass." Leo mock saluted.

"On it." Rolling his eyes, Mitchell scanned for a box and nudged it toward the bedroom.

"Love you, darlin'!" Leo called after him in the thickest Texan accent that he could conjure. He settled nicely against the couch once more and wiggled his toes in his flipflops.

Reyna graciously took three more boxes and shirked a fourth toward Annabeth. "Thank you for letting use this apartment as an HQ too. Annabeth's roommate was starting to get suspicious."

"That you're a vampire and Piper is a siren, or that the girl he loves like a little sister is an item with the both of them?"

Annabeth flushed red and smacked Leo. "You're as bad as _Percy_, I swear to god."

"Percy, Percy, Percy," Leo repeated annoyingly. "Where is that booger anyway?"

Nico cocked his head and fidgeted as he leered at his beloved boyfriend. He mouthed, _Booger? _

Jason shrugged.

"He had work," Annabeth explained. "You don't want him here. He'd set the sprinklers off." She rolled her eyes and slapped a hand over Nico's shoulder. They never had the uncomfortable relationship that Nico had with Percy. He'd been jealous of her when they were still dating but it stopped the moment Percy redefined Nico and his entire relationship.

"That's alright," Jason assured. He chuckled softly, hand wrapped delicately around Nico's waist. "I don't want a headache before I start the semester. We're not that close anyway."

"Not at all," Nico grumbled. Annabeth gave him a curious look but didn't bother to act on it.

As far as Nico could tell, the group didn't have a negative opinion of Percy. He never let them know his thoughts. Percy came in association with Annabeth, Frank, and Hazel, but Nico would be damned if he ever decided to spend time with Percy all on his own.

Mitchell returned, his hands covered in a neat chiffon scarf that was directed towards Nico.

"I'm not wearing that."

"I didn't say a thing," his best friend said innocently—but Nico could hear that disgusting tremor in Mitchell's voice. He was always terrible at lying. "Have you heard from Frank and Hazel?"

Ah. "The funeral was held yesterday." Choosing his words carefully, Nico shoved his hands in his pockets and chewed the inside of his mouth. "A lot of people showed up. Frank said his dad even swung by."

"Oh," was the only thing Mitchell said next. They all stood in silence as a pool of responses was flushed away.

"I miss them already." Piper frowned and looped an arm around Reyna's shoulders.

A smile graced Jason's lips and he leaned into his lover. "Hazel's coming back to finish her schooling down here while Frank commutes back and forth over the weekends for familial arrangements. We should bring Sparky up there once we get him."

"Or her," Nico pointed out. He fidgeted. "Doesn't staring at a hellhound make you drop dead?"

"You can train them not to do that," Jason assured.

"We're under strict orders by Hazel to keep you safe," Reyna said suddenly. She nudged Leo aside and sat carefully on the sofa with a quaint look. "Mitchell and Leo will take first watch tonight."

Nico's jaw tightened and he twitched again. "Pass."

"_Whaat_? We make excellent spooners. Defensive spooners." Leo wiggled his eyebrows from where he was. Mitchell groaned softly under his breath.

Over the past few months, if Jason was out of town in any sort of way, Nico realized that monitoring him was _exactly _what Jason's little family liked to do. It wasn't long before it became _their_ little family. Piper and Reyna usually crashed with Annabeth, while Leo was smitten with his alone time in Mitchell's dorm room. (He apparently did something bad enough to make Mitchell's roommate's bed explode. That was fine—Mitchell didn't like his roommate that much to begin with.)

But, even with Hazel and Frank in the apartment, they all felt the need to have at least _one_ mythical being protect Nico in the night. He drew the line at watching him sleep.

"Hazel doesn't even know about—_this._" Nico gestured to the entire room, commanding their attention without a better word to describe them. He twitched again, eyebrows furrowed with frustration, but dropped the subject. One of his biggest compromises with Jason was that Hazel was to never find out about the not-human part about their group. Frank wasn't an animorph, and Nico didn't think their threshold expanded to anything whackier beyond—_well_—Percy.

"Your house is on the precipice where the bond between the Other Realm and the Mortal Plane is the strongest." Reyna clicked her tongue and stared at him with disapproval. "We're preventing your apartment from being taken over by pixies."

"Pixies bite really hard," Jason explained right off the bat. "Good nightlights though."

"We'll cover all the damages," Piper assured.

"And that's why you're my favorite." Nico snorted. Ugh. He didn't want to hear the word _precipice _for a long time.

"_Hey_!" Jason laughed sweetly as Nico nudged him and bent over to give his shorter lover an even more delicious kiss. "So? You guys gonna help us unpack?"

A cacophony of groans met their ears—a beautiful thing to hear at two in the afternoon. Jason fistbumped his boyfriend while Nico rolled his eyes, and they both dispersed from their living room.

"How much do you wanna bet that someone's gonna break something?" Jason murmured as they watched their friends wander about the kitchen.

"Please. That's as stupid to bet on as, 'how long will it be before some mythical creature breaks into our bathroom.'" Hiding a smirk, Nico stopped his boyfriend before Jason could unpack another box. "You'll want to wait on that one."

"Why?"

"I'll show you why," he continued innocently, before his hand curled down Jason's forearm and around that pert wrist. Nico stood to the tips of his toes and kissed Jason, hard, before pressing his lips to Jason's ears. "Tonight."

Jason shivered.

"I'm gonna take a shower," Nico declared. He wiped the grime off his forehead and looked over to Jason, who was curled in their new king-sized bed and ogling the TV that Vulcan put together for them as a housewarming present. It was one of the best quality televisions that Nico'd ever seen.

"Okay," Jason murmured. He yawned, and Nico followed in suit.

There was a lot unloaded in the apartment, but not enough unpacked. A witch enchanted a three-legged table that turned out to be a huge menace. They'd spent their entire afternoon trying to chase it down. Piper threatened to incinerate it, but Leo refused and named it Buford.

Who knew chasing after mahogany would be so exhausting. Rubbing his eyes, Nico grabbed a towel and sauntered off to the pearly-white bathroom. He opened the door, shirked off his shirt and—

Saw a sea green and blue scaly tail illuminating under his bathroom light, extending at least five feet, dipped gently in their new bathtub before winding outside onto the floor. Attached to it was a green-gilled man, with wavy, seaweed like hair and a face like—

"_Percy?_" Nico choked.

"Oh hey!" The green monster's lips spread into a hearty grin. He lifted his webbed hand from the tub with a _SWOOSH _and waved it kindly at Nico. Percy wiggled his face where his eyebrows should be. "Your new bathtub is a portal to my home world, Neptunia!"

"You're a mermaid." Nico's voice cracked and he twitched. Again.

"Alien, actual—" _**SLAM **_

Nico marched back into the bedroom and threw himself under the blankets. He heard Jason yelp—the latter even toppling off the bed—and decided on sleeping.

"Nico…?"

"_I am so done." _


End file.
